Officials are hard at work to find a way to catch the man believed to be the arsonist behind a number of the fires plaguing the area in and around Makana.
Officials are hard at work to find a way to catch the man believed to be the arsonist behind a number of the fires plaguing the area in and around Makana.
Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation Kevin Bates says they are set to meet with the police soon, and will then work close with their intelligence unit in the hopes of catching the man.
"The intelligence unit will compile a profile of all the suspects after we've forwarded their names, and then we will monitor the suspects closely especially during fire seasons," said Bates.
Last Friday 18 October, Bates told Grocott's Mail that they believe someone was deliberately starting the fires.
"We are 100% sure that there is a person starting these fires and it's just a matter of time before we catch him," he said.
A total of six fires broke out this past weekend and destroyed 2000 hectares across farm and municipal land.
Less than a month ago, three fires raged on the N2 highway, bringing traffic to a near standstill. On that same weekend a fourth fire broke out close to Somerset Heights, forcing families and animals to flee their homes.
This brings a total number of fires in the pas month to 10.
Bates said they have a prime suspect and that they had even confronted him, but will not reveal the name yet. In response to questions about the evidence supporting this conclusion, Bates said "whenever a fire broke out and we would rush to the scene, the man would always be there lurking, but that is not good enough to take him down as we require solid evidence – like catching him starting the fire".
Rumours about an arsonist started doing the rounds earlier last week with many making speculations and assumptions.
Police spokesperson Mali Govender said anyone who might have information about the arsonist should go to the police.
However, not all the fires in the past month were started by the arsonist. According to Bates some of the fires were a result of strong winds blowing over electricity cables and back-burning going wrong.
Back burning is a risky technique which is sometimes used by fire fighters to put out a fire. They start another fire in front of the main fire in order to burn it out. Bates said in one of the recent fires the technique backfired. "A change in wind direction made the fire break away and quickly spread out of control," he explained. Bates said when back-burning is done right, it is highly effective in putting out fires.
With the current water crisis in Grahamstown, no-one would blame fire fighters for trying to extinguish a fire without using too much water. But what is back-burning and how does it work?
According to Wikipedia back-burning is a way of reducing the amount of flammable material during a wildfire. This is done by starting small fires along a man-made or natural fire break in front of a main fire. It is done to stop a wildfire that is already in progress. It is called back burning because the small fires are designed to 'burn back towards the main fire front'.
The reasoning behind the method is that it leaves little material to feed the main fire when it reaches the back-burned area.
Back-burning is usually done along a natural firebreak such a river, road or a bulldozed clearing.
