Devil's Peak in Cape Town is Burning

When I first arrived in Cape Town, I did a post showing the awesome view of Devil's Peak that I have out my window. Tonight the view looks very different, since the whole mountain is on fire.

It has been burning now for about 5 hours, and has literally consumed nearly the entire mountain. Erik, Jana, Kara, and I were having dinner downtown when I got text messages about it. Upon returning home, we saw the flames and the smoke from miles away. With how much is burning, it seriously looks like lava, and at first I didn't really understand. But, yes, it is on fire.

Cape Town and the Western Cape is used to fires, but this isn't the same. As a local put it in his blog post:

"You know, most of us grow up in such a way that when we see a fire on a mountain, we don’t really think too much into it, but I can promise you that as I look at the mountain this time, I can feel a sense of fear and adrenaline running through me, this feels too close to home :| "

Most of the city smells like smoke, and the wind is taking it pretty far. Luckily, the wind is heading in the opposite direction of the UCT Upper Campus (remember? My campus is built into the side of this mountain!), so the wind is currently keeping it away. That being said, Erik drove us up to Upper Campus, and the fire isn't so very far away.

Here is panorama from our front yard (click to enlarge):

From our roof.

From UCT Upper Campus

It is quite eery outside. I climbed onto the roof to get some photos, and you can constantly hear all the emergency vehicles rushing around the city, and as we were driving before we saw fire trucks barreling down the Main Road without their sirens on. The whole city's fire and police teams must be out tonight, yet you don't see many people, or hear much else.

I suppose it didn't seem so close to the city before, because it was just on the mountain. When we got home, Kara said, "I want to go to bed, but I don't want to go to bed and wake up and be, like, on fire." Which I thought was funny at the time, but after hearing more, it seems that it's getting worse.

Key word here is seems. None of the Cape Town online news outlets have reported a thing yet, five hours into the huge fire. It seems so weird for me, because as an American, this would be everywhere. The campus hasn't posted anything either, and I'm not sure if we have class tomorrow. In fact, I've turned to Google Blog searches, and Twitter searches to get information (which have actually been quite reliable).

The fire has started to come down off the mountain, and they have evacuated certain parts of Observatory. One guy said that the fire was like three blocks from his house, and they were being evacuated. A later update shows that he feels like the house will go up.

Then Gabby, Laura, and Mick got home. They took the interstate and actually saw houses on fire. I'm not sure how bad it is, but you'd think there would be more news reports? We even turned on the TV, and couldn't find anything. Looking for information here!

You can see emergency vehicles and flashing lights on the side of the mountain, which is not to be confused with the rest of it, because it seems as if almost the entire side that is facing me is glowing red, and I know the other side is burning, too, because of the glow through the smoke.

I don't think there is need to worry about us, though. Our house is several blocks from the main road, and some 3,000 feet from the mountain. We will also have plenty of time to react if things change. I do worry about campus, though... and Table Mountain. It is now almost 3am in the morning, but I'll be monitoring it.

Here are some more photos:

Looking over Observatory.

The glow from the other side.

Groote Schuur Hospital in blue.

Taken from that hospital.

Trees that I think are near UCT Upper Campus.

The peak.

Update: It looks like News24 has posted an article about it.  It was started pretty close to here.

Update 2 (4:02am):  It is still burning, further around and away though.   There is much more smoke, especially since the wind has died down.  The whole neighborhood smells of it.

Some posts on Twitter:

kerry_anne: Cape Town is sad tonight, Rest Of The World. Our mountain is on fire in a BIG way. Houses are under threat and people have been evacuated.

kerry_anne: Trust me, I've lived in Cape Town all my life, but I've never seen the mountain on fire quite like this

MarkH: Fire raging in Cape Town's Vredehoek CBD neighborhood just below Table Mountain. Police evacuating. Hope friends are ok!