St. Francis Bay residents evacuated
Firefighters and emergency teams were on Sunday night battling a fire between the luxury holiday towns of St Francis Bay and Cape St Francis in the Eastern Cape.
St Francis Bay National Sea Rescue Institute station commander Paul Hurley told ANA that the fire started in the reserve on Saturday near Sea Vista township after “someone lit a flare and it landed on the veld”.
According to the St Francis Bay Civic Association, a large vegetation fire was closely monitored on Saturday by Kouga municipality’s disaster management department, but it later spread.
On Sunday the fire flared up and crossed the R330 on the Cape St Francis side, and the road was subsequently closed a few times.
The local fire department reportedly asked residents with thatched roof houses on the edge of the reserve to start wetting their roofs and to clear bushy areas around their homes as a precautionary measure.
Residents in Cape St Francis were later without electricity due to the power lines being affected by the fire.
By early Sunday evening, residents in St Francis Bay were requested to evacuate their homes and gather around the beachfront and lighthouse area as an evacuation point.
During November 2011 a runaway fire tore through the seaside town and destroyed 76 homes, many of which were luxury thatched roof villas and mansions.