Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Claims of long shifts as reward set to establish cause of blazes
A WINELANDS firefighter has died in a car crash while on his way back to the Worcester fire station. The fire-services vehicle in which he was travelling was found overturned yesterday afternoon. The man died at the scene.
Nicholas Gcuze, 25, a reservist who had just started his second contract, had been returning from filling up the water tank.
Wayne Josias, senior manager for Cape Winelands fire and rescue services, said: “It’s very sad and tough losing one of our own. The emergency medical services fraternity needs to stand together at a time like this.”
Staff had attended a counselling session yesterday.
The death comes as the city has pledged a R25 000 reward for anyone with information relating to the cause of the fires which have caused dam- age worth more than R50 million.
Danie Wilds, a Cape Winelands fire and rescue chief, confirmed Gcuze’s death, but denied he had worked a 20-hour shift.
This follows allegations by a City of Cape Town firefighter who said firefighters were unhappy with working long shifts without relief. The firefighter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the city needed to come up with better schedules for firefighters.
“We’ve been discussing it among ourselves. We’re not happy about the long shifts and the short periods of rest. This is the first time ever that we have been on the field without relief,” he said. “In a nutshell, we work 24 hours, non-stop.”
He said that in the past, firefighters would have 12-hour breaks, adding that he knew at least five firefighters who had suffered smoke inhalation.
Wilds admitted that firefighters worked 24-hour shifts. Asked how long a firefighter gets to rest, he said: “Normal time, as every human being.”
He said he did not have Gcuze’s register to check how many shifts he had worked this week.
“This has shocked everyone. We don’t want these sort of things to happen,” he added. JP Smith, mayoral committe member for safety and security, confirmed a reward for information would be “signed off by the mayor early in the new week”.
The city has set up an investigating team working within its Special Investigating Unit to work with police.
However, Smith said he was not hopeful that the investigations would yield positive results, referring to an investigation which was conducted after the Southern Peninsula fire two years ago.
“We didn’t have any positive results in the previous investigation, so I am doubtful that we will get much out of this one,” he said.
He said al though officials would be offering a reward for solid information, “all fires are caused by man”.
“The majority of fires are caused by man, whether it is through negligence or malicious intent, it is a criminal offence.
“Fires that are maybe sparked by train wheels or similar events are so minimal that they are not even worth mentioning,” he added.
Smith said authorities had three witness statements “relating to the Knorhoek site, where witnesses said they saw children starting a fire in that area, but that fire was put out by the fire services. Another report involved the fires that were also put out in Boskloof,” he said.
Smith said the likely source of the big fire stemmed from an informal settlement in Grabouw.
He said the triangular patch of burnt area near the informal settlement was a clear indication of where the fire was likely to have started. He said this was the cause of the “big fire in the Helderberg area”.