ONE YEAR LATER
Knysna rises from the ashes
● Exactly a year since a firestorm tore through Knysna, Clint Churchill woke up this week to plumes of smoke again rising from the forest on the outskirts of town.
Nothing to fear this time, however — Churchill now lives in a camper van parked next to a factory and can drive away if things get too hot. He has lived this way since the June 7 fire last year, continually fleeing municipal officials who chase him out of parking lots all over town.
On the opposite side of Knysna, Gordon Rattey was oblivious to the fire that flared up briefly on Thursday in the municipal dump. Rattey now lives happily in a 50m² one-room house that he built in 20 days using insurance money he received for his burnt-out Citi Golf.
The entire structure occupies the same cement footprint that used to underpin his parents’ double garage. “It’s simpler this way,” said Rattey of his downscaled home. “I have to walk a lot more now without a car — it has added a few years to my life.”
It’s the same story all along the Garden Route, where many victims of last year’s disaster have been forced to make big changes — often with fire safety in mind. Some new homes are almost entirely made up of donated goods and materials, while some owners have used the rebuild opportunity to go offgrid and now live without municipal services.
A case in point is Rhian Berning and her family, who lost their home in a fire outside Plettenberg Bay just before the June 7 inferno. Their new home is a monument to sustainable living: solar power, rainwater tanks, greywater irrigation and a fully functional “fire pool” with a built-in pump in case the flames come back.
They have even incorporated the burntout husk of a milkwood tree into their lounge, and have used the brick rubble from their previous home in their new lounge.
“It took a while before I came to terms with rebuilding here,” said Berning, recalling the sooty lunar landscape left behind by the fire. “But I saw it as an opportunity to do things better.”
The bottom sections of their burnt rainwater tanks were cut to serve as gravel reed beds which filter grey water for their vegetable patch; shelves are made from old scaffolding planks; and their kitchen lintel is a railway sleeper. “Using available resources — for me that was a big thing,” said Berning. “On a personal level the real lesson is to be humble and accept what is coming our way.”
Municipal response
Another off-grid pioneer is Wendy Dewberry in Noetzie outside Knysna, who said homeowners need to adapt to climate change and the possibility of more fires and flooding.
Dewberry’s new home — she and her partner escaped the old one by driving their car into the waves on Noetzie beach — has an improved solar power system that provides more energy than they need.
Conserving energy is nothing new to Zenele Maneli, from White Location above Knysna, where the fire destroyed about 200 homes. Maneli and many other fire victims still live in temporary housing due to delays in redeveloping their old site.
While she is thankful for municipal services, she said she and her neighbours had yet to receive any of the promised fire assistance in the form of cash or donations. “Most of us didn’t receive anything like that,” Maneli said. “I used to have four rooms. Now we have one room and there are six of us.”
An underwhelming municipal response to the disaster was a big talking point in town this week, and may have contributed to a successful motion of no confidence in mayor Eleanore Bouw-Spies at a council meeting on Wednesday.
Other concerns include insurance disputes, inflated municipal service “availability” charges — even for the many landowners who have yet to rebuild — and difficulties in removing hazardous material, such as asbestos, from some sites.
However, several active volunteer groups have revived flagging spirits among fire victims with acts of generosity — to the point that some beneficiaries themselves became donors. “People just kept coming [to donate],” said Rattey of the stream of good Samaritans who arrived to help build his unusual home. “For a week I couldn’t leave in case I missed the free stuff. I eventually had to give stuff away.”