You may be aware that we’ve been besieged in the Kogelberg region, by huge veldt fires since New Years Eve. The area is a United Nations Biosphere – the biodiversity is believed to be greater than anywhere else on the planet; more than 1500 distinctly different forms of flora can be found in this narrow coastal strip, which stretches from Cape Town up South Africa’s south eastern coast towards Mossel Bay and Knysna.

New Year’s Eve saw one reveller* light a marine distress flare, which almost spent, fell into the tinder dry fynbos nearby.

The prevailing south easterly wind at this time of year quickly turned a few flames into a conflagration, which then raced towards neighbouring Pringle Bay and across the Kogelberg, from where on day ten, it was in sight of Gordon’s Bay, having burned its way many kilometres across the mountains.

On Friday morning, the wind swept around to a gale force north westerly, which blew the whole fire front back to where it had started, creating even more destruction. Almost 20,000ha of pristine fynbos has been lost.

The supreme efforts of the fire fighting teams and helicopter water bombers managed to control the situation with the help of some blessed rain and by Saturday morning, the worst was over. At least for the fire fighters. For the many that had lost their homes, the heartache has just started.

I went out yesterday (Saturday) to try and capture the essence of the devastation. These photographs show just a tiny glimpse of the fire damage. More than 30 homes have been lost and at least one death is attributed to smoke inhalation. I see no reason to venture into people’s sorrow and difficulties, so my focus here has been purely on the flora.

All of these photographs have been shot with the Fuji X-H1 and either the 90mm f2, or SBH (16-55 f2.8 zoom).

On a final note, fynbos requires fire in order for its seeds to germinate and much effort is expended year-round to keep invasive species to a minimum. In addition to their ability to overrun the fynbos while using precious water, these plants, bushes and trees also burn at considerably higher temperatures than our native fynbos and in so doing, destroy the seeds which would ensure survivability of this extraordinary gift from Mother Nature.

So, will the fynbos survive? Some rain in the next couple of weeks ought to start the seed germination cycle and hopefully, soon we’ll then see some hopeful green shoots pushing their way out of the sand and ash.