Simon Nare
If you see a gigantic smoke billowing out of the Golden Gate Highlands National Parks between Clarens and Qwa-Qwa in the northern Free State, do not panic and call the fire fighters, this is an annual ritual at play.
Park manager Paddy Gordon told Inside Travel that internal controlled fire-burning takes place annually this time of the year and this is important to minimise the loss of vegetation in the area as opposed to wildfires which normally burn hundreds of hectares of grass.
“Integrated fire management has to look at two things, the first is that the vegetation needs fire to renew, refresh and rejuvenate the vegetation. It needs the fire frequently, sometimes it needs more, sometimes it needs it less. So that’s one part of fire management.
“The other part of fire management is managing fire risk. So if you are sitting in a vegetation type that is going to burn like in our case the grassland. We know every year something is going to burn,” said Gordon.
Gordon added that the legal requirement stipulated that the neighbours to the park have to be protected from the wildfires that can break out in the park. So the park takes the initiative to burn the areas around for instance the hotel that is in the park as well as residential areas of staff.
Gordon said the park was prone to wildfires that are sparked by lightning and reckless motorists who throw cigarette buds out of moving vehicles, so the park burns grassland along the road as a preventative measure.
He said this measure helps in times when a wildfire breaks and is propelled by a strong wind and by the time it gets to the burnt area, it could no longer spread to residential areas or the hotel.
“So, when we burn around the building it is not for the vegetation, it is for our own safety. Fire is also needed in the vegetation. If you try to fight fire and keep it out of the grass then you actually leave it (grassland) neglected and you actually lose species,” said Gordon.
Wildfires are common this time of the year as the grassland is dry due to the winter period. The two vegetation types that are notoriously common for spreading wildfires are the fynbos and grassland biomes.
Gordon said these wildfires are not necessarily destructive to vegetation as the vegetation grassland has developed mechanisms like dropping seeds as well as underground stems which quickly regrows after the fire.
With 60 species of grasses, the Golden Gate is currently the only grassland national park in the country and can be divided into grassland and woodland or forest.
“The grassland fire risk is due to the area receiving high summer rains which makes the area lush green with much moisture in the air and in the environment. In winter there is no rain but also the severe cold weather and frost causes the grasses to dry out and receptive to fire,” a statement from the South African National Parks read.
SANParks said for years it has been conducting controlled burns in most national parks and when the Golden Gate in particular used controlled biodiversity burns as some of the tools in the park. In so doing, the prevailing weather is considered, resources and manpower are in place and other major fires in the vicinity are considered.
“A biodiversity burn is intended to respond to a patch of vegetation that needs to burn to be rejuvenated. Certain veld types, like the fynbos and grassland, will lose species over time if fire is excluded for a long time. This burn stimulates seeds and underground stems to spring to life and re-populate the ecosystem,” it said.
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