Small fire breaks out at UCT campus, doused after a couple of hours

A small fire broke out at the University of Cape Town’s (UCT’s) Upper Campus late on Wednesday night and was put out around two hours later.

In a statement, the university said the fire broke out on a vacant field near the campus. There was no damage or danger to any human life as the flames were far from any infrastructure and buildings, it added.

The cause of the blaze has not yet been identified. An investigation into the matter will be conducted.

“The fire was reported at around 11:30pm on Wednesday by the patrolling UCT Campus Protection Services (CPS) and the fire services department was on site within 15 minutes. The fire was completely doused by 1:45am the following morning,” said Elijah Moholola, spokesperson of UCT’s Communications and Marketing Department.

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Measures have been implemented to prevent the fire re-igniting.

This is the second fire at UCT within a year. The first one occurred in April 2021 as a wildfire spread from Table Mountain and eventually engulfing parts of the campus, including the Jagger Library building as well as the HM Pearson and Fuller buildings. About 4,000 students had to evacuate the university’s campus.

The university said it would provide more information once the investigation into the fire was complete.

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