Call for disaster aid as wildfires ravage NW, Free State & Gauteng
The Southern African Agri Initiative (SAAI) has launched an urgent appeal for disaster aid to support farmers affected by widespread wildfires in multiple provinces.
According to SAAI chairperson Theo de Jager, farmers in the North West, Free State, and Gauteng have suffered significant losses, with vast areas of farmland and livestock destroyed by the fires.
The wildfires, which erupted between Parys and Lindequesdrif over the weekend, were particularly destructive.
De Jager said farmers had to contend with at least three major fires in the junction of the three provinces.
“Fortunately, the farmers in that area are very well organised. They also had the assistance of the fire protection association and a number of people had to be transported to clinics and hospitals.
“There were also some livestock losses, thousands of hectares of grazing have been destroyed as well as infrastructure damage and fencing that has been destroyed.”
Meanwhile, Working on Fire spokesperson Linton Rensburg says the organisation’s firefighters were deployed to battle more than 60 fires across various provinces over the long weekend.
“It was the Mpumalanga province, where just over 400 firefighters assisted various land owners and fire protection associations as well as local municipalities attending to 32 fires across the province.
“KwaZulu-Natal also saw 230 firefighters had to battle 17 fires across the province. In the Free State, 126 firefighters attended to 7 fires across the province and in the North West 29 firefighters attended to three fires.”
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