‘Like waiting for an advancing enemy’: Thin yellow line saves homes as tinder-dry Greyton burns

There’s a meme doing the rounds in the village of Greyton. A man, framed by a blackened landscape, leaps over a fence and rips his T-shirt to reveal a Superman costume.

The meme, created by a resident, is symbolic of how the village feels about the ordinary men and women who’ve put their lives on the line 50 times in the past six months to protect its borders and those of the other five villages in this picturesque valley.

Rural Greyton sizzles in summer. Tucked against the Sonderend mountains in the Western Cape, on the hottest days temperatures can soar above 40°C. This year, the landscape is also abnormally dry on account of the lowest winter rainfall in 60 years, and afternoons are harassed by high winds – the perfect recipe for wildfires.

Gavin Jones, the man in the meme, says this year’s fires stemmed from arson. He recalls four fires ignited in the veld in an almost perfect line below the neighbouring village of Genadendal. They were lit one after the other by an individual or individuals; drone footage of the fire line proves his point.

“It’s quite difficult not to be despondent at times,” says Jones, leader of the Greyton Volunteer Firefighters (GVF). Being constantly on the alert, fighting fire after fire across all six villages, called away from his wife and son at all hours, there have been moments he’s come close to throwing in the towel. “But it’s in my nature to help. I’m wired this way. And, to be frank, I can’t think of anything that comes close to dealing with one of nature’s most destructive forces and beating it.”

Like many children, Jones dreamt of being a firefighter and kept that fantasy alive into adulthood by learning to drive a Unimog (a tough, all-terrain vehicle that is often used as a fire truck), rope climbing and landing a job with a company specialising in forest fire detection systems.

Simon Struben, co-founder of the GVF, had extensive firefighting training in national parks and on oil rigs. Although the men had experience and a passion for protecting their village, at first they did not have the necessary firefighting equipment. This is where their story takes a remarkable twist.

About two years ago, a building fire broke out behind a popular Greyton restaurant, exposing the inadequacy of the village’s firefighting pre­­paredness – a battered truck, weathered hoses and one reservist.

A few weeks later, with the reservist having moved to another town, a much bigger fire started behind the village cemetery. With the help of his personal assistant Andrew Andimosi, half a dozen work colleagues and the reservist’s abandoned trailer, Jones extinguished the fire.

“That’s when we realised what a big deal this was, how wrong it could have gone.” The next day, he asked to meet Overberg District Municipality (ODM) fire chief Reinard Gel­denhuys.

The ODM has firefighting responsibility for more than 12,000 square kilometres of towns, villages, settlements, coastal resorts and farmland. It has several satellite fire stations in some of the bigger towns. The closest to Greyton is at Caledon, 34km away, but distance is a significant hurdle.

Having convinced the fire chief of his commitment and experience, Jones was allocated an ageing ODM Unimog fire truck, with which he and his slowly expanding band of volunteers managed to extinguish a few small fires. The team was given basic training, but after a year, me­chanical failure put an end to their truck. It went for repairs, but 18 days later another fire flared up in Greyton’s nature reserve, bordering a row of large residential properties. “The fact that we didn’t lose a house that day was a miracle,” says Jones.

With only the trailer’s 1,000-litre water tank at their disposal, the GVF was forced to call the ODM for helicopter reinforcements.

With no word on their truck’s return and fire season in full swing, the GVF called a town hall meeting. It wasn’t difficult to persuade Greyton’s residents that the GVF should buy its own truck. In two weeks they raised an astonishing R800,000.

“Greyton is a special town; we do have an affluent community,” Jones says. On the day the privately funded Unimog rolled into town, villagers lined the main road to cheer.

Above and beyond

A wall of flame 15m high towers above the GVF’s four-man firefighting team; they are all that keeps it from incinerating the row of homes behind them. A shower of orange-gold sparks lights the night sky as pine resin explodes. But there is no panic.

“Yes, adrenalin is pumping,” agrees Struben. “You’re on high alert. You watch it, you can be afraid of it, but you must be calm. It’s like waiting for an advancing enemy: you wait to see where the gaps are and then attack.”

Homeowner Helen Barone watched the flames as they approached her home. “The smoke and heat were extraordinary, the intensity of the fire apocalyptic,” she says.

Her house still stands thanks to the GVF. Though she heaps praise on the four frontline firefighters, they don’t work alone. They are supported by beaters and spotters, a logistics crew, a sustenance squad supplying donated food and drinks, and a communications link to villagers keeping them updated.

In the aftermath of another large summer fire, the ODM’s fire chief addressed the residents of Greyton, showering praise on the GVF. “It honestly choked me up,” recalls logistics volunteer Gemma Downing. “I felt extremely proud to be a part of this team.” DM

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.