The Cape Aflame – Cape Town's Dance with Fire
All proceeds go to the Cape of Good Hope SPCA • Cape Peninsula Fire Protection Association • SANParks Honorary Rangers (TMR) • Volunteer Wildfire Services
In the furnace heat of early March 2015, the Muizenberg Fire ripped our iconic Cape Peninsula in two, uniting Capetonians as never before. Sweeping from coast to coast, the largest single wildfire
in Table Mountain National Park’s history razed 5 120 hectares of fynbos, four homes and a luxury resort. Residents feared its vindictive ferocity. Ecologists welcomed its life-giving, rejuvenating power. Threatening the city’s marginal Wildland Urban Interface – breached when Tokai Plantation exploded into a full-fledged firestorm, the runaway blaze was met by overwhelming force and an integrated fire-management system born of international experience and centuries of dancing around wildfire management. Under a rage-red, smoke-filled sky, accompanied by the unmistakeable clatter of dozens of fire-fighting helicopters, bombers and spotter aircraft, 2 000 wildland and urban firefighters from across the country worked tirelessly and with choreographed precision to avert disaster. Committed to their mountain and city, Capetonians rallied behind their firefighters. Generosity and goodwill abounded. Nevertheless, a week of potential cataclysm left the Mother City felt mugged by Mother Nature. The Cape Aflame – Cape Town’s Dance with Fire, a graphic 176-page, hardcover, large-format case study selling for R395 from capeaflame.org, eases the sense of despoliation caused by those fire-filled days of March 2015. A voluntary initiative that has raised more than R250 000 for Western Cape-based public-service organisations, it has sold well over 2 000 copies and will likely go out of print barely six months after publication. Using more than 200 stunning photographs, 30 0000 words and a detailed fire-progression map, it sets wildfire in the context of history and our fynbos biome’s needs. Going beyond the fireline to educate us in preserving our biodiversity while accommodating a vital natural force, it crackles and sparks with the spectacular intensity befitting an arresting, richly-researched and definitive record of the 2015 Muizenberg Fire.
174 pages • 200-plus photographs • Hardcover with dust jacket • 250x300mm • December 2015 • SA Media Services • capeaflame.com
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