Water wasted in fighting fire

WATCHING the fire raging and consuming parts of the slopes of Hout Bay (where I holiday), I was impressed when I saw the response of the emergency services by dispatching three helicopters, a spotter plane and fire fighters that were doing their best dousing the flames, fighting high temperatures and high winds .

But I was flabbergasted when I realised that the helicopters were using potable water from the nearby dam instead of sea water when there is such a shortage of drinkable water due to the persistent drought.

The helicopters kept on going for over five hours dropping water on the affected areas and at 5 000 litres per bucket-full I estimated their effort must have consumed about a million litres of potable water.

I know that using sea water would have affected the vegetation due to the salinity but what is more important: saving our scarce resource or having the vegetation “suffering” for a few months and then recovering with the coming rains that could have brought levels of salinity on top soil back to normal. Jean Michel Bryanston, Johannesburg