bush fires

Hi everyone

Myself and 7 mates went hiking over the past long weekend (13-16 June).
We hiked up to mafadi via centenary hut, corner pass, mafadi, leslies pass and back to injasuthi camp.
Being my first multi day berg hike it was FANTASTIC!
during the hike, we could see veld fires although on Sunday 15 June, it became evident, we might be in danger...

We camped at a spot at the bottom of leslies pass. the sky was glowing red and we could see the flames approaching in the distance.
Our wives were called by the officials at the injasuthi camp telling them there is a dangerous fire and that we were in the mountains.
Our cars had to be towed by tractors to escape the dangers of the fires as we obviously had our car keys with us. (So grateful they moved the vehicles.)

Our planned route would have us back at the camp on Monday and that is what we informed the camp before departure on Friday so I'm not sure why the camp would contact our wives which caused great concern with them obviously. Having no cell phone signal, our wives could only hear from us on Monday afternoon.

We set our alarms for every hour to keep watch on the fire at our camping spot at Leslie's pass and the flames never came any nearer.
Obviously when we arrived back at the injasuthi camp, we were very relieved at the help of the officials with moving our vehicles.

The whole hike back on Monday, we walked through burning veld on the opposite side of the river.
We were relieved we were not in any danger the previous night.

I want to know if there were any other hikers that were affected/injured by the fires?
Does anybody know the cause of the fires?
The wind was furious aswell on Sunday which could have had an impact of course.

Look forward to hearing everyone's views

Hi Mr T

Were the fires on the escarpment and coming down the pass, or coming from the Injisuti Hutted camp towards the base of Leslies pass?

Had it been burnt up on the escarpment between Corner and Leslies?

Thanx

Hi guys

The burn seemed to have come up from the camps direction although it looked like it started somewhere around the village that you drive through on your way to camp or even beyond that.
The were no signs of burnt grass on the escarpment at all.

When walking back to car park at Injasuthi camp, we walked through black burnt grass which was not burnt on Friday when we started our hike.

I also have a few pics i would like to upload although I'm struggling to get that right...

Will keep trying

The burning of firebreaks is not permitted over the week ends in KZN Midlands, so most of the fires during that period are caused by arson or carelessness. Whole block burning is only permitted from August after 20mm rain has fallen. A lesson to be learnt....don't park your vehicles near anything that's famible in winter! The skies in KZN Midlands are very smokey today as landowners continue to burn their firebreaks which must be completed by the end of July.