Ashes & mist

And the regrowth continues; apart from the most obvious watsonias and other bulbs coming up everywhere, fire lilies are carpeting the slopes above the Silvermine Dam and bushes are budding at their bases. From below it appeared that there was just a cloud on the mountain, but once inside it was decidedly wet, so it's no wonder that the regrowth is happening so quickly - the fire came at the best time, with gentle moisture allowing the plants to cover and stabilise the ground a bit before the heavier winter rains come.
Captions are on the photographs, which speak for themselves...

PS. The park remains closed to give the animals one less worry while foraging for food since cover is so scarce (although I think the raptors are getting enough to eat!), but I've been fortunate to gain access to the park, this time on a clean-up walk with the Friends of Silvermine Nature Area - mostly bottles and tins chucked into the ex-bushes as the plastic and paper obviously burned up, but I've come across fresh plastic bottles in some areas above Kalk Bay, and it really saddens me that people have a desire to go into pristine nature, and then leave it in a mess.

After the flames

"Like walking through a sepia photograph" as my sister Vanesa described it, there is so much beauty in the wake of the fire. Although our beloved mountain is looking, and feeling, extremely stark and devastated, life wastes no time in showing itself. Within hours of the flames passing, Leaucadendron seeds lie pooled around the tree trunks, having waited many years for fire-heat to trigger their cones to open, while charred-tipped Watsonia leaves show the first flashes of green. Fire lilies (Crytanthus ventricosus) and blood flowers (Haemanthus coccineus), which will only be seen after a fire, push their way through the ash a few days after the fire. It is still eerily quiet, and what little bird song there is, seems somehow subdued. Lizards sun themselves on rocks, a tiny fieldmouse nibbles on a precious seed, probably stored underground by indigenous ants, and spiders spin new webs between the remains of charred branches. Mimetes bushes show a hint of protected green at the center of their bracts, and cotyledons of as-yet unidentified plants carpet the banks of a stream. In the coming weeks and months the landscape is going to change dramatically! Exciting times...

Still burning.

After burning all the way across the top of Silvermine from Muizenberg to Hout Bay, the fire came full circle on the lower slopes early this morning to its starting point at Farmer Pecks. I stopped in at the Lakeside fire station, where an exhausted yet upbeat crew related how they had been operating the only urban area fire engine, responding to a number of fires during the night (including one in Kuils River where they had to deal with rocks being thrown at them! The mind boggles!) The rest of the city's fire crews were stationed at various files around the mountain.

Ou Kaapse Weg was open again and I drove up to view what the fire had left in its wake. The air was at least five degrees warmer on the mountain, and burned signposts were still smouldering, as were a number of holes in the ground where pine stumps had been (emitting an admittedly fragrant scent). Across the valley smoke continued to billow from the pine plantation above the Tokai Arboretum, where fire crews were stationed all night trying to contain the fire, yet slowly being forced to concede ground to the fire. Shortly after sunrise the helicopters arrived to start water bombing again.
I spent some time looking around for signs of life, and found a few tracks of bokkies, lizards and small insects. To my surprise I could hear quite a few species of birds, and I watched a pair flitting around a bush, calling to each other. Numerous ants scurried about, but apart from them and a lone beetle, I found nothing else. Given the vast extent of the fire, I can only wonder where the wildlife would escape to, and the difficulties any survivors will face while the fynbos regenerates. The SPCA has requested that people nearby place shallow dishes of water in their gardens, along with seed and fruit for any refugees that make it. I know a number of vet clinics are clearing their schedules to treat any injured wildlife found in the aftermath. (Incidentally, today happens to be World Wildlife Day.)

Tragic and devastating as the effects of this fire are, it's good to remember how the mountain fauna and flora survived after the hectic fires of 2000, and hope that it will flourish again, soon.

Muizenberg Peak and Lakeside from Zandvlei at 5am on day three of the fire - having covered Silvermine from Farmer Peck's to Hout Bay, it has returned to where it began.

All that's left... (smoke from fires on the top of Muizenberg Peak on the left and Noordhoek on the right)

Silvermine West, with Constantiaberg and the upper slopes of Tokai Forest still burning.

Smoke covering the flats below a barren, charred Silvermine