Maya del Mar's Daykeeper Journal: Feature

LETTER FROM CAPE TOWN, JANUARY 2006

by Yvonne Taylor

Note: Yvonne writes from her home in Cape Town, South Africa.

We might have had a nice wet winter, but it made lots of vegetation grow which is now going up in flames. This is proving to be our worst fire season in five years, every day at least six to eight fires in the southwestern parts of the country. Yesterday was the worst—23 fires in the Cape Peninsula alone, the most serious being a huge inferno near the Caltex refinery—that's all we need!

The smoke was thick and brown and crept quite eerily over the entire sky; it almost seemed threatening like a nuclear cloud. It was eventually brought under control, but the sky was still smoky today and asthma sufferers have been warned to take care. Only a few weeks ago we had a massive fire near the nuclear power station—Chernobyl comes to mind...

Another serious fire has been raging in the Franschoek valley in the wineland area since Saturday. We heard tonight that a man has been arrested for starting it. Maya, you will probably remember the lovely lunch we had in that valley at a wine farm—all those mountains are raging infernos, vineyards have been destroyed, just blackened grape bunches hanging on withered vines—it's tragic. Takes years to replant and grow grapes, these crops were almost ready for harvesting.

We had a raging summer gale last Saturday which got worse up till yesterday. It didn't help matters at all.

On December 24, Table Mountain went up in flames. Many luxury homes in Camps Bay have been destroyed. The saddest thing is that 10% of the world's plant species are found on Table Mountain and many plants there only grow on this mountain, nowhere else in the world.

Yesterday another fire broke out just below the lower cableway station, started by a cigarette butt carelessly thrown—in spite of repeated warnings to the public.

So all in all we're ending the year on a fiery note and it's not going to improve for a long time yet.