Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
12 Apostles at the mercy of wind, fire
Guests evacuated from smoke-damaged venue
THE luxurious 12 Apostles Hotel & Spa is under threat of being “burnt to the ground” according to its general manager.
Guests had to be evacuated due to extensive fires which by Thursday had surrounded the five-star Camps Bay hotel.
The building has heavy smoke damage and remained at risk given the ongoing fire surrounding it and volatility of winds. No injuries were reported. Inadequate fire hydrants at the back of the hotel proved to be a challenge in putting out the blaze when firefighters started to pump water from the hotel.
This, according to general manager Michael Nel, was despite a three-year application to the City of Cape Town to “subdivide a portion of the land around the hotel, for the sole purpose of improving the firefighting capabilities of the hotel, due to the below-average water pressure and the precarious position and constant threat of fire”.
The city deployed five fire trucks and 25 firefighters to the Victoria Road mountain fire. “The fire is still largely monitored as certain areas are inaccessible‚“said Edward Bosch‚ spokesperson for the rescue services yesterday morning.
A further 10 firefighters are on standby and are attending to flare-ups at the 12 Apostles.
Firefighters from the City of Cape Town, National Parks and Working on Fire were battling fires in Blackheath as well as on the slopes of Signal Hill with the blaze on the Green Point side posing a threat to residential areas yesterday.
There was a total of 35 Table Mountain National Park contracted firefighters, 80 Working on Fire firefighters and nine volunteers from the Volunteer Wildfire Services as well as staff from the Cape Peninsula Fire Protection Association.
According to Bosch, the department “responded to a vegetation fire at High Level Road, Signal Hill, at 1.02pm yesterday”.
It was unclear how these vegetation fires started. Earlier this year, fires on Signal Hill were allegedly caused by an arsonist believed to be a 14-year-old boy who fled the scene before police had arrived.
Firefighting operations were also under way in Oudekraal on the mountain between Llandudno and Camps Bay.
The City of Cape Town’s director of safety and security, Richard Bosman, said a chopper was in operation behind the hotel with one spotter plane using sea water.
The fire had by the morning “moved past the 12 Apostles Hotel from the tar road into Table Mountain National Park and three Working on Fire Huey helicopters and one fixed-wing spotter plane were dispatched to Cape Town,” said the regional communications manager for the Cape region of SA National Parks, Merle Collins.
Collins said the public was requested to “exercise extreme caution during the upcoming fire season, to only braai in designated braai areas, to discard cigarette butts safely and not to make illegal fires”.
The public was also requested to immediately report all fires within the TMNP area on 0861 106 417 or the City of Cape Town Fire and Rescue Services on 021 480 7700 and 107 from a landline.
asanda.sokanyile@inl.co.za