Some More Fire Stuff

RAIN: It’s raining in Cape Town. And while all the helicopter buckets in the world (which obviously aren’t in Cape Town anyway) are great, the clouds can do a much better job on the ongoing fire. Still, it’s just rain. And while it’s very welcome news: it’s actually quite a lot later than we would have liked.
Maybe He has been busy since Sunday. Mysterious ways and all that.

Hang on, he’s got that wrong, hasn’t he?

Yep. Thought so.

But it’s obviously thanks to some people’s hard praying that we’re all saved. Or something.

Ugh.

Anyway, while the wet stuff falls over the greater Cape Town area, it still only came down as “a passing shower” over some of the affected areas. So we’re definitely not out of what’s left of the woods yet.

BOTANY: In other news, here’s a great post on why what has happened, happens:

The burning of fynbos vegetation is an inevitability. It is sad that people are negatively affected but it is far from sad that the veld itself is burning. This vegetation type has been subjected to fire for millennia and the optimum fire interval is every 10-14 years. Fire is a keystone process without which many plants in the fynbos would not be able to regenerate, produce offspring or reproduce. Fynbos plants are either resprouters or reseeders: Either they can resprout after a fire has passed through or they produce seeds that are adapted to survive fire and require heat from the fire and chemical compounds from the smoke to germinate.

I’d urge you to go and read that whole post. Really interesting stuff, well-written and well-aimed at us lay-botanists.

MAPHere’s a thing where you can see how big the fire area would be, were it to be dropped on your locality. It’s set at 3000 hectares as I write, although that was the area affected on Monday morning – I’ve watched it move much further since then. But it does give some idea.

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PHOTO: Finally, still my favourite photo of this whole thing (and there have been a lot of photos of this whole thing):

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I don’t know who took it or where it’s taken, but it just indicates the scale of the task that the local firefighters have been up against.

It’s Back!

The English Premier League returns this weekend and international coverage promises to be better than ever before, with the fantastic John Dykes at the helm – and he’s already been tweeting teasers of the new studio.

Look at that touchscreen! LOOK AT IT!

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And the horrendous pink has gone! Lawd be praised!

They don’t use Kasabian’s Fire as the EPL theme music any more, but for the millions of SA fans, the two will always remain inextricably linked. Thus, it is presented here:

And yes, that’s beautiful Piketberg in the video.

Toddler stuck in mop bucket rescued by firefighters

Yes. Seriously.
And it’s in my hometown of Sheffield, famous for knives, forks, the Tour de France and now – small children stuck in mop buckets.

Crews from South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service’s Dearne station in Rotherham, rescued an 18-month-old girl from a mop bucket at about 1pm today. The toddler, from Adwick road, Mexborough, was rescued safely and was not injured.
The fire service tweeted:
Child stuck in a mop bucket? No problem! 18 month old girl freed by Dearne firefighters without injury.A spokesman for the service added: “It was nothing too serious and was put out to show we do attend more than just fires. Most of the time we are called to people stuck in railings and that sort of thing.

Personally I have never heard of something like this but it’s not unusual for us to release children.”

I have no particular comment on this, save for the fact that I’m glad the little girl was unhurt.
I just thought it was a cute story. Sadly, no pictures, but on the plus side, that does mean that you can let your imagination run riot.
I’m sure that this unfortunate event will never be mentioned again – especially on her 21st birthday.

Keep warm

We’re off out for a longstanding dinner date this evening – the arrangement of which, incidentally, demonstrated exactly how busy modern life can be – but having checked the weather forecast, I thought that my local readers would appreciate this photo given the wet, windy conditions expected over the weekend.

It doesn’t move, I’ll admit. That’s because it’s a photo. If you want movement, you’ll have to head over here and buy the DVD. That also comes with “a selection of different styles of fire and authentic noises”.

Here at 6000.co.za, you get “my braai” and you have to imagine the sound of the bottle opener hard at work behind the camera. Red wine will be the order of the day, I would imagine.