Raging inferno ravaged parts of Cape in 1869 The way we were
REPORTS about the devastating fires in the Southern Cape and the misery of those who lost everything reminded me of the previous “great fire” in the area, which followed a prolonged heat wave 148 years ago.
The 1869 conflagration ravaged farms and destroyed valuable stretches of indigenous forest as it raced from Swellendam to Uitenhage and inland to Meiringspoort and the Langkloof.
It was unstoppable and denuded a swathe of country 650km long and 25km-250km in breadth, killing dozens of rural people trapped in its path. It was larger in extent than the 2017 blaze, but fortunately the villages were spared. Despite the best efforts of modern firefighters and water-bombers, the current destruction has been immense.
According to the pass-builder Thomas Bain’s daughter Georgina, searing February Berg-winds baked the pears on the trees in their George garden, and horses were badly scorched and drivers’ hands burnt when picnic parties at Victoria Bay had to flee for their lives through the flames on the road back to town.
It seemed that nothing could save George, but then the wind changed and the blaze swept through the forests at the foot of the mountains in the direction of Knysna (which also received a last-minute reprieve), annihilating livestock and wildlife (including elephants), smothering birds and showering ash on ships 3km out to sea.
According to contemporary reports, whites and blacks suffered alike and many lost all they possessed. Black people and colonial wives and children accounted for most of the dead. Survivors and some of their livestock took shelter in rivers, dams and wet ditches, where many were badly scorched.
Anglican Bishop Robert Gray was appalled at the desolation when he visited the area three months later. According to his wife Sophy, “Many people think that it was so hot and crisp that the trees might have taken fire by friction, but I am not disposed to believe that. The wind was a hurricane, and the least spark carried on it would light again, and quantities of bits of burning wood or fern flew for immense distances, so that in many places the burn is all in patches, some left green and surrounded by black… ”
The terrifying inferno was the first South African fire to be proclaimed an official disaster. Crown forests received more attention and the Cape government appointed Captain Christopher Harison as the first full-time conservator of what was left of the George, Knysna and Tsitsikamma forests in 1874.
Meanwhile, the devastation that had denuded large tracts opened the way for the construction of a road along the coastal shelf to Plettenberg Bay involving steep descents to what had previously been inaccessible river crossings. Built by convict labour, Bain’s magnificent Groot River and Bloukrans passes were completed in 1882 and 1883.