The Link Between Runaway Fires and Invasive Plants

Throughout the dry summer months, runaway brush fires, driven by furious South Easterly winds, are a constant threat to lives, homes and wildlife in the South Peninsula. This danger will inevitably become worse as global warming becomes more and more of a reality, for we can expect even stronger winds and an increasingly harsher and drier climate. As it is, every year thousands of hectares unnecessarily go up in smoke, leaving nothing but blackened devastation in their wake and millions of Rands in damage and fire fighting costs.

GLENCAIRN 2004: Gum trees are also aliens and burn really well ! (Photo by Steve Coe)

There is little doubt that the most effective fire preventative strategy is to take effective steps to reduce the biomass of invasive alien vegetation. Exotic shrubs and trees are indisputably the main factor involved in the difficulty of containing runaway blazes in the mountain areas of the Deep South. The problem is simply that all of the more common Alien types are full of resin and are hence highly combustible, especially in the windy summer dry season. They grow in tangled, almost impenetrable, thickets, often in inaccessible spots, and burn much hotter than the indigenous fynbos. They produce masses of seeds and recover far more quickly than the native flora after the fires, allowing them to push out their boundaries - always at the expense of any remaining natural vegetation.

SOME HIGHLY SUCCESFUL LAND GRABBERS (Photo by Steve Coe)

THE NEED FOR EFFECTIVE AND SUSTAINED ALIEN CONTROL

The control measures, attempted to date, have been bedevilled by the fact that responsibility for the mountain land and it’s margins has been split up amongst a plethora of authorities and private landowners. Consequently well intentioned Invasive Alien clearing programmes have been fragmented and often badly coordinated and generally lacked effective maintenance/ follow through programmes to consolidate the gains. This has allowed the alien invaders in many areas to quickly regain their grip on land cleared at great expense.

Even worse, some authorities and landowners have made absolutely no effort at all. Their overgrown land, provides a huge fire risk and a continual source of new seeds to infect their more responsible neighbours. State and Navy land around Simonstown and Glencairn is a prime example of this disgraceful neglect. Also selfish speculators, unwilling to spend a cent on their investment, have left large tracts of land unattended for years to become rampant with undergrowth. The result - alien plant invaders are everywhere literally pressing against suburban homes and informal settlements, putting many communities on the urban edge in extreme danger.

IT TAKES JUST ONE SPARK ! (Photo by Steve Coe)

OVERGROWN ROAD EDGES

And then you have the problem of the overgrown road reserves along major routes such as the Glencairn Expressway (Blackhill) and Ou Kaapseweg that have large sections of the roadside overgrown with alien vegetation. Similarly, in the suburbs and villages, wherever undeveloped land meets the urban edge there are brush choked verges overhanging the suburban roads. The clearing of the road reserves/ verges is the responsibility of the City of Cape Town (CoCT), who have shamefully neglected their duty to keep their road edges clear of aliens.

A VERGE CHOKED WITH PORT JACKSON, ROOIKRANS AND MYRTLE (Photo by Steve Coe)

The road reserve strips, allocated to both sides of the major routes, are actually quite wide pieces of land and, if cleared properly, would provide meaningful fire breaks to check the path of runaway fires. Similarly, suburban road verges, cleared of undergrowth, would make whole neighbourhoods safer. Instead these overgrown jungles of alien plants, seen everywhere along our roadways, provide fire paths straight into the heart of our communities and become a constant source of seeds to infest adjacent land, such as along Black Hill expressway, where SAN Parks has done an excellent job of re-establishing indigenous vegetation, but are being re-infested by alien vegetation from CoCT’s road reserve.

Actually, these overgrown road edges are relatively small areas, compared to the total extent of alien colonized areas in the South Peninsula, but they should be at the top priority of any clearing programme. This is because they are strategically of the greatest importance, for they have the largest interface with human activity and are at the greatest risk of ignition from dropped cigarettes, fires started by car crashes and even from arsonists. And, as we have already stated, if cleared and maintained, they could provide very effective barriers to arrest runaway fires. Actually, road edges should be kept absolutely clear of all bushes and shrubs, including indigenous vegetation, to be effective barriers against the spread of fire. A total “no tolerance” policy would be easiest to police.

ENFORCING THE LAW

It should be realised that there are already ample laws and bylaws on the statute books, not to mention sufficient common law obligations, to compel owners to clear their land of proclaimed alien invaders and then keep them properly maintained. The problem in the past, has been a lack of will from the authorities to apply these laws. However, there are encouraging signs in the Glencairn area that CoCT is now prepared to act decisively against these neglectful landowners - this is in response to urging from the local community, who conducted neighbourhood surveys of unoccupied plots. Letters have now been written by CoCT to most of these offenders, warning that their land will be cleared at the owner’s expense, should they not do it themselves. However, we have yet to see a high profile prosecution of a large landowner or of a successful civil action brought against the Navy or other State institution for its negligence and lack of response.

OVERGROWN NAVY LAND (Photo by Steve Coe)

THE NEED FOR UNIFIED ACTION

It’s strange isn’t it? – when the crunch comes, money can always be found to pay for huge fleets of fire engines, expensive helicopters and armies of fire fighters, but there is never enough in the budgets to make headway against the root cause of the problem – the removal of the invasive alien infestations. It always seems that a combination of lack of firm resolve, insufficient organisational ability and a reluctance to cooperate effectively hampers the efforts of those entrusted with the care of the land. Action always seems to be taken without an effective overall strategy. The result is that various piecemeal clearing programmes, with few exceptions, seem to eventually fail from a lack of “carry through”. What a waste of resources ! The need is for focus and this needs a rethink of strategy.

However the residents of the South Peninsula also need accept some of the blame. The “At-Risk” communities of the Deep South, with the exception of a few stalwart “hackers”, have shown incredible apathy and lack of interest in getting involved in the fight against invasive aliens to protect their own interests. We all need to get involved – to clear up our own neighbourhoods and also to to put sustained pressure on the responsible officials and elected representatives at City and Provincial level to act. The public must demand, in no uncertain terms, that the City immediately clears their own land and also takes legal and other effective action against offending land owners, including the Navy and other State Institutions. More involvement from our communities could generate political pressure to compel the City, Province and State to increase budget allocations for clearing high risk alien infested areas to meaningful levels.

It must be obvious that unless we have a sustained and unified effort from everyone, things will just continue to get worse. One day, if we don’t all act together, a raging South Easter is going to sweep an unstoppable roaring fire right through one of our suburbs, with a comparable loss of property and life, as that experienced in the horrific fires in Australia this year. In the South Peninsula, we have already had a taste of this at both Scarborough and at the informal settlement at Red Hill in 2008, but with the right wind conditions, things could get very much worse. It is time now to act together against unwanted plant land invaders, before we are faced with a disaster of huge proportions.

GLENCAIRN VALLEY 2004: (Photo by Steve Coe)

The DA now controls both the City and Province – we must demand that they take more effective action to make our areas safer from fires. Phone your local councillor and ask what she /he is doing in this regard. Remember they’ll be wanting your vote in the municipal elections in 2011. We have already seen excellent cooperation from State, Province and City in providing effective disaster management for the task of fighting fires. Now communities need to press our elected representatives to ensure that all the statutory bodies make far more progress in unifying their efforts for less sexy task of preventing fires.

STRATEGIC PRIORITIES

We have to accept that there will always be budget restraints and limited resources - so the need to spend wisely and prioritise effort is paramount. The guiding principle should be to make property and human life safe from the threat of runaway fires. This must be achieved through prioritizing the clearing alien vegetation and any other uncontrolled massed vegetation principally at the interface with human activity. Fires are usually caused by human activity and are most likely to start along roads, in informal settlements or from open fires within the urban areas. These “flash points” are also the danger areas where runaway fires will do the most serious damage to life and property. As the City (CoCT) is responsible for most of these interface areas, it is through their offices that most action will have to be taken.

So before we continue with the necessary, but massive task of clearing the tens of thousands of hectares of wild mountainside, we should first prioritise the much smaller task of tackling the more important “flash points” that are the alien/ human interface areas. This would amount to at most a few thousand hectares. By legally compelling all classes of landowners to clear land at their own cost, the budget implications need not be too frightening and if successful, far less would need to be spent on the expensive task of actually fighting fires. A long term strategic goal would be to eliminate all invasive alien vegetation within the urban boundaries within a set period – say five years and to keep it clear in future by adopting an absolute NO TOLERANCE policy. Towards this end, the following strategic priorities need to be undertaken immediately : -

• The City (CoCT) needs to strengthen its links with all other land owning statutory bodies and make sure it has very forceful representation on all committees dealing with the control of invasive alien plants. Emphasis must always be on a unified, coordinated approach.
• It is essential to promote the awareness in local communities of the link between runaway fires and invasive alien vegetation, through press releases, poster campaigns and web sites (such as this one) to encourage individuals to clear their own plots and to report offending landowners.
• CoCT must immediately clear all road reserves, suburban verges, servitudes and existing fire breaks of both alien and indigenous shrubs and bushes and, by regular inspection and maintenance, keep these strips of land clear in future, adopting an absolute NO TOLERANCE policy.
• CoCT must take steps, to identify all erfs that are currently covered with alien species and compel the offending landowners to clear their land within a set time, failure to comply must immediately result in the land being cleared at the owners’ expense. The city’s legal department needs to take a very active role in this regard and not hesitate to impose penalties and take criminal or civil action against the larger offenders. A roster of all cleared erven needs to be set up and the plots checked annually to ensure that effective maintenance is on going. An absolute NO TOLERANCE policy is essential.
• Informal Settlements and the immediate surrounding areas need to be cleared of all invasive aliens (and even concentrated masses of indigenous vegetation). Annual inspection and maintenance has to be part of the programme. Community consultation with residents is essential, but an absolute NO TOLERANCE policy is paramount.

YOUR ROLE IS IMPORTANT – KILL AN ALIEN TODAY !