DEVASTATED
Fran Collings, one of hundreds of residents evacuated in the face of the fire that swept into Tokai early yesterday, later returned to her gutted home in Almondbury Lane. She and her husband Jeffrey have lost everything.
THE four-day peninsula fire brought destruction, but it also brought out the best in people.
All over the southern peninsula people volunteered to do whatever they could. Neighbourhood watches with twoway radios worked through the night to help firefighting officials by alerting them to flareups and hot spots.
Residents unrolled hoses and doused their own and their neighbour’s rooftops. Others took chainsaws and cut down big trees around houses in the path of the fire. Some filled buckets and formed bucket chains.
Some set up volunteer centres and put out the call for help through social media. And the help came – in abundance.
Across the fire-threatened area – Hout Bay, Noordhoek, Lakeside, Clovelly, Tokai – volunteers set up collection points at fire stations, in community halls or sometimes just on the roadside, and organised the masses of food, water, fruit and cooldrinks the communities had donated.
They also brought saline solution, eyedrops, lip ice – and even serviettes. In church halls, volunteers made sandwiches and tea.
Others packed the food in parcels and drove up to the fire lines to feed the firefighters and other emergency staff, and the teams of volunteers.
There was so much left over every day that the surplus was sent to charities.
At Lakeside fire station, bottled water was stacked against one wall, cooldrinks against the other, sandwiches in one corner, boxes of fruit in another. Sooty firemen tucked into a big watermelon.
Andre Blignaut, from Lakeside, was co-ordinating donations.
“We worked through social media and people just came. What you see here is just a fraction of what’s come and gone.”
The officials and emergency services said they have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support, and so have the firemen.
But in a quiet corner, some of the firemen told the Cape Times they did not want to appear ungrateful, but please, no more peanut butter sandwiches.
“You’re hot, thirsty and you want water and something solid to eat – fruit is good. Not peanut butter sandwiches. They just stick to the roof of your mouth.”