dec 31 2005

xmas day in melkbos

13 years ago, almost to the day, there was a huge veld fire that spread from the table view area (on the beach side) right through melkbos and eventually got stopped at the houses in koeberg / duynefontein. this christmas ed and i went to melkbosstrand, it was abit of a mission with roads being closed due to the fire that had being going for 2 days already. the r27 (west coast road) was sealed off and it was slow going on beach rd. the following 2 pics were taken from doodles and big bay.

the next 2 were taken along beach rd between blouberg and melkbos (the 2nd one is near derde steen)

it didn't seem that bad when we drove through to melkbos, it hadn't actually reached there yet. but with gale force winds it managed to get abit out of control. it somehow passed atlantic beach golf resort and hit melkbos, that's when we climbed on our roof to get a better look at what was going on, with sirens screaming past my mom's house every few minutes... these 2 are the evacuation of sea park (a retirement village behind my mom's spot)

i also managed to get a nice sequence of the chopper support loading up with water from the sea nearby.
and while i was on the roof this little (or very big) creature escaped the heat and flames and landed next to me!
later we went and visited a friend who lives in bato way, pretty close to the bushes that were burning, and got some good pics of the fire and chopper dropping water.

it was a pretty big fire and alot of damage could have been created because 13 years ago there was alot less development. but the firefighters and volunteers did a great job at controlling a damn big fire in terrible gale force conditions. well done everyone! these last 2 pics were taken as we were leaving melkbosstrand later on in the evening, the sign is on the way to the r27 (west coast road) which was still closed and the 2nd one is where we popped out on the r27 by big bay...

i hope you all had a good, safe and loving christmas. i hope you have a great, safe and happy new year... see you all next year!

Posted by sarah | personal