The fire on the Helderberg Mountain, Somerset West

This morning a fire broke out in the Helderberg Nature reserve.  From what I have heard it started at around 8am.  Unfortunately the vegitation in our area is extremely dry at this time of the year - our rainfail comes in winter.  That, accompanied with the very strong South Easterly winds is a recipe for dissaster.  The fire quickly spread across the side of the mountain.  By lunch time there were 4 helicopters and 2 crop-duster planes trying to put out the fire.  In addition I heard that somewhere between 80 and 250 firefighters and volunteers were on the mountain trying to stem the spread of the fire.

I'm not sure how many homes have burnt down.  There are man different rumours about how many have burnt down.

One of my photos was used in the Times Online article today. The article gives some more information about the fires.

Below are a series of photos - most of them were taken by my wife, Megan.

This photo was taken from my friend Graham Power's home at about 8pm this evening.

I took the photo below with my iPhone when I went cycling this afternoon. It shows the width of the fire.  From here it 'hopped' around the left hand side of the mountain towards Stellenbosch (along the R44).

Here are some photos taken by Megan of the helicopters and planes tryinig to put out the worst of the blaze.

In this picture you can see one of the helicopters scooping water from a dam at the bottom of the nature reserve.

This is one of the two crop dusting planes that also pitched in to help.

Please spare a prayer for the firefighters and those who have evacuated their homes, and those who may have lost homes and possessions.