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| Protected Area Damaged Knysna Fire |
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2007/8/16
Forest fires were still raging by Tuesday afternoon at Karatara in the Southern Cape, with firefighters hoping for cooler weather to stem the flames.
Spokesperson for Working on Fires, Val Charlton, said the fire between Knysna and Sedgefield had moved away from the forest areas. Fires were still burning in the mountains on Tuesday morning.
"We're hoping that it would burn itself out in the mountain, cooler weather is coming into the area and we're also hoping for rain."
Charlton said the cost of the damage caused to the commercial forest area had not yet been estimated.
Large parts of natural fynbos in a protected area had also been damaged.
Charlton said the Southern Cape usually experienced warm berg winds and fires during this time of the year.
In the eastern Free State authorities were still busy calculating the cost of damage caused during two veld fires last week between Senekal, Ficksburg and Clocolan.
Forestry spokesperson in the Free State, Malcolm Proctor, said in both cases about 4 000 hectares of land, mostly grazing, were destroyed.
So far this year 167 000ha of land had been destroyed in Free State fires.
This is more than the combined figure for the province for 2005 and 2006. - Sapa
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| Source:Cape Times (on 15, August 2007) |
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