Fire!

It may be Saturday morning but no lazing about today. The sun has barely woken up and we are driving south with long-time, local, Zulu, Phinda ranger, Benson, looking for ellies and buffalo. Beautiful buffalo sighting, a herd of maybe a hundred, closeby. And a few lazy cattle egrets hitching a ride on buffalo backs, between insect foraging sessions in the long grass. Drinks are taken on the Inkwazi Floodplain and for any doubters that this area was under sea millions of years ago, Benny does his own foraging and very quickly produces a fossil of some ancient sea snail. Our imaginations try to construct what this landscape might have looked like all the way back then…

Frrrt Frrrt…Wind beats. A rare, endemic and spectacular painted bird, a Neergard’s Sunbird, lands just 60cm away from me. Its plumage sparkles, iridescent, in the afternoon sun. It is not alone, dozens of sunbirds, flit around us, in blues, reds, yellows and many shades between black and white. Five of the six species you get on Phinda. Ten metres up from the ground, in the branches of a Scotia tree we sit. This is the sunbirds’ playground, not the usual environment for humans and so they show no fear of us. A Purple-crested Touraco flies in, just metres away, unaware of our presence. Also unaware of our presence for surprisingly long, is ranger Brett, in his vehicle below, showing his guests the somewhat famous sunbird tree. The tracker has spotted us and chuckles from his seat on the bonnet. Binos hunt for close up views of the tweeting birds, and soon we are discovered. “Refugees from Mozambique probably.” Brett quips with his guests when he eventually spots us.

There are always new adventures to fill the free days with and today we go canoeing, on the Mzinene River, right in the south. Giant kingfishers, the size of pigeons, lure us downstream, while the bright yellow fever tree forest in the distance, shines from afar, and looks on in silence. Nyala drink nervously as we float past and scatter away from the water as we get too close. Water and mud fights between the three canoes are kept to a bit of a minimum and soon we are back at Inkwazi ranger training camp, for eggs on toast, looking down at wildebeest frolicking on the floodplains below.

Candlelit dinner on the verandah, no background music, but the rasping cough of a leopard in the distance, and the whistling of a nightjar closeby keep us company. Soon these sounds are joined by cracking branches. Ellies feeding a few hundred metres away. We hope they will pass by. They don’t.

A swim at Forest Lodge pool is always allowed, during game drive. And it’s always a good chance to check out the bird hide. Today we get another special bird, the delicate little Green Twinspot. But before that we lounge at the pool. A chopper, a Robbie 44, flies past. Low. Close. Kakhi-clad fellows hang out of the sides, counting animals for the annual Phinda game count. Three choppers, three days, covering the full 25,000 hectares.

It’s hot and windy today. It feels like we’ve skipped spring and just moved straight onto summer. Fixing fences again at Skelm Gate, the wind provides some relief from the heat. Just across the fence, dry grass and branches crackle in the billowing smoke of a controlled burn at Passport, Mkuze Game Reserve. “Will it jump across to Phinda?” I ask. “No, it will stop at the road” Jimson assures me.

Lunch is taken at home today, and twenty minutes into it, the vehicle clatters up to our door. “Ikhona inkinga enkulu!”. The fire did jump after all and “There is a big problem!”. I pile into the back with the guys sitting on the water bauser and we fly down Main Zinaav, towards the block just south of Skelm Gate. Towards the fire eating up precious grazing on Phinda.

The pump on the back of the bakkie roars to life and the pipe in Simon Naylor’s hand spits out water. Far too little I think. Five or six of us follow him, slamming the rubber flaps at the end of our beaters into the embers and ash. Making sure no spark of fire has survived the dousing. Musa rushes off with another bakkie load of beaters to tackle the fire further north. Here we are at the head of the fire, the business end. We are moving too slowly though. The grass is thirsty and the dry, north wind hurries the fire on ahead of us. Having lost too much ground we pile into the two vehicles and head towards the southern side of the block. Forget the head, let’s burn a break next to the road. Oil trickles out of the drip torch. Soon it is flaming, and traveling down the road in the hands of Rasta, lighting the grass just north of the road. Beaters in hand we wait, ready to tackle the blaze should it jump the road. More vehicles have joined us. More beaters too, from Inyathi Anti-poaching.

Yellow-billed Kites circle above the dark grey of the flames that rise out of the bushes to the north east. They will snap up hapless victims of the blaze, roasted in the flames. You can spot the head of the fire by the shade of smoke. Dark grey smoke belongs to the head. The firebreak is roaring now. And smoking furiously. My eyes well up behind my sunglasses and my nose starts to run. The dry bushes close to the road are dangerous. Beaters stand sentry either side of the danger points.

Shouts go up. “Ujombile!”. The fire has jumped. We’re warned, in a Zulu word poached from Afrikaans. Beaters rush in, black rubber flaps attack the flames. To no avail, the wind has beaten us again and the fire races south. We chase after it. The tractors with a huge bauser labour behind us as the Landcruisers hurtle through the bush.

The drip torch goes to work again. Beaters stand by.

No-one can believe that Mkuze would choose to start a burn on a day like today. Low humidity. Pumping wind. A blazing sun beating down. No warning from them. No 5-metre firebreak as required by law. And their controlled burns amount to tossing a match in an area and letting is burn naturally. Lance, the Mkuze warden looks sheepish, and quite helpless too.

The head is racing towards the road, to the south-east now, and the bausers are ready. Waiting. We patrol the road further west. The firebreak is in full blaze now. Talking to the team of beaters, Jimson suddenly spins around. A beater sentry down the road is shouting to us. Ujombile again! We race to control the blaze, but again we are thwarted. My eyes burn in the smoke. I use my hat to try filter out the smoke. It does a pretty weak job.

Thembankosi, a chap from the alien removal team and I trudge further south, in the wake of the vehicles who have rushed off to prepare a third fire break. Through the haze we can just make out a small herd of zebra traveling in the opposite direction, upwind of the onrushing flames.

We cut east, and join up with the Sodwana Bay Road. The head is some 500m away still and Simon arrives in a cloud of dust. “Watch that the fire doesn’t jump the Sodwana Bay Road up ahead” he blurts out and speeds off. Shortly after a game drive vehicle rolls up. Ice cold water has never tasted this good! Our first drink since we started tackling the fire some 3 hours ago.

Thembankosi drink from one of the less cold bottles, and not too much. He explains that drinking lots of water in one go will just make our knees heavy as all the excess water gets stored there. And ice cold water is very bad for your kidneys. He never has ice. Ever.

Warm, dry winds rush ash-laden smoke on towards us, ahead of the flames. A short way to the south we can just make out shadowy figures and vehicles through the smoky haze, rushing around. Two yellow beams from the tractor are almost swallowed up. The big bauser is being moved into position.

Simon rushes by. And then back. And we march south with the fire, hoping and checking that the grass on this side doesn’t catch a spark from the flames. Our hope is in vain, but our checking is not. Also having joined us, Seth quickly rouses someone on the phone and one of the bausers races up within seconds, to work amongst the beaters frantically flapping at the flames that have jumped. We have saved a huge block from burning and are sure that the animals will be grateful for our efforts.

But the danger has not left us just yet. Lala palms rise up ominously from the yellow-dry grass. Right next to the road and right in the path of the fire. Nothing is more dangerous for a raging bush fire. The leaves will burn furiously and then break off, sailing up in the winds and crossing over the road to settle on the tinder grass. Izinyoni, or birds, is what the Zulus call them.

A chainsaw fire up. Branches are stripped and then the whole palm is cut down. Our hands clutch at the thorny branches and drag the tree deep into the block, away from the road. And then another one. And another one. And then the chain snaps. Never mind. There is no time to mind and no time to waste. We keep stripping what we can by hand, glancing quickly up towards the racing fire-head. Pangas chop and hack and help. But the flames are on us. We beat a retreat across the road. And we wait.

The fire again jumps south. But the palm removal prevents it from jumping east across the Sodwana Bay Road. Simon is relieved. We all are.

Back up north again, for the fire has jumped east in the northern section. Radios coordinate fire-fighting and break-burning. A beater grabs a quick sandwich snack from a clean white platter on the back of the Landcruiser. We also need fuel to keep going.

We’ve moved into the woodland now. The trees cover is dense but the grass load is low. The fire travels slower and is more easily put out. But by now the fire has spread to such a huge area, different teams tackle different areas. I cannot see the sun through the smoke and the trees, but my watch says it is low in the sky now.

I stay behind with Jimson and a fellow beater. To check if the flames return. Soon we are happy that all is well here and we move out, walking across the block to the road. Any road. We follow the flames, past smouldering stumps. My hat again makes pretty poor smoke filter. But it is better than nothing. We trample over crisp, blackened grass, ducking under bushes. It is getting quite dark now. Jimson voices what we’ve all been thinking. Watch out for animals! Kristal’s sms echoes his warning. Be careful. As I’m reading it I fall more than waist-deep into a warthog hole. I have to laugh.

We eventually hit the road. Jimson is on the radio and soon a vehicle arrives, to take us home. To rest. For seven hours we have parried and chased the flames. And still the fire pushes on. South and east. Towards the precious Sand Forest. A small team will stay behind to keep watch, radios at the ready. The vehicle pulls up to Umfaan’s. A tired, drained Jimson bids me farewell in Zulu, “We’ll see each other tomorrow. Or later tonight.” I hope it is tomorrow.