Six firefighters battling Garden Route wildfire treated for smoke inhalation

Six Hessequa municipality firefighters battling a wildfire in the Garden Route were treated for smoke inhalation at a provincial hospital on Thursday.

According to Garden Route Disaster Management, the incident happened near Heidelberg.

“If all goes well, they will join ground teams later tomorrow (Friday) morning,” it said.

It added that, despite this, progress in putting out the fire has been made.

“Foot patrolling of all fire lines, mopping up and monitoring for flare-ups will continue tonight (Thursday) and tomorrow morning.”

“Aerial resources were also deployed today but due to last light approaching they had to finish operations for the day,” it said.

The fire has been raging since last Friday in the Overberg and it is believed that it was started by children who had malicious intent, News24 previously reported.

Between 50 and 100 firefighters were on the ground fighting the blaze at any given time and the situation is beginning to improve.

“We’ve appointed Enviro Wildfire to investigate this. Hopefully, it will result in criminal proceedings,” Overberg fire chief Reinhard Geldenhuys told News24 on Wednesday.

“We’ve managed to contain all the lines around Greyton and the houses [on Tuesday] night. We still have two active lines on the western and eastern side. There’s an active line above Genadendal that is still burning, as well as toward Riviersonderend, and we have teams working on those. Around 60% to 80% of the work that remains is to mop up and ensure that we don’t have flare-ups.”

Geldenhuys said five “extensive” structures had been destroyed in the fire.

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