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The Department of Public Works has commended the work done by Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) Working on Fire fire-fighters who are part of a multilateral operation to extinguish the fire that is threatening the lives and property in various areas of Cape Town, the Overberg and Southern Cape.

Over one thousand Working on Fire participants from various Provinces have joined the operation. According to DPW deputy minister, Jeremy Cronin, the Working on Fire programme is one of the flagship programmes of the EPWP. “Once more hundreds of highly motivated and well-trained young South Africans are in the front-line of dealing with the fire danger”, Cronin said, “underlining the great value of government’s public employment programmes.”

“We are proud of the work done by our EPWP participants in Cape Town. They have joined with various organisations and the people of Cape Town to extinguish the on-going fires in the Southern Peninsula. This is what we mean when we say that EPWP is a programme of the people of South Africa and therefore it responses to all societal challenges,” the Deputy Director-General (DDG) of the EPWP in the national Department of Public Works, Mr Stanley Henderson said earlier today (5 March 2015).

He thanked the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) – the implementing department of the EPWP Working on Fire programme – for deploying the fire-fighters to Cape Town.

“We are truly proud of the work done by the DEA in conserving our environment and saving the lives and property that is at risk of being guttered by these fires,” he added.

The areas that are affected by the fires include Muizenberg, Bredasdorp, Tulbagh, Hermanus and parts of the Southern Cape.

The Working on Fire teams are working with other fire-fighters from Volunteer Wild Fire Services, the Table Mountain National Park and local municipalities. 

The General Manager of Working on Fire in the Western Cape, Shane Christian, earlier said that the fires could have had a devastating socio-economic impact had it not been for the involvement of EPWP Working on Fire fire-fighters

“We must compliment the Government for funding this programme. The Government has used close to R4 million to fund this operation since Sunday. Working on Fire costs alone are well over R600 000 over the last four days. The R4 million we are talking about includes aircraft costs and fire-fighting. In this operation we have used four helicopters to drop more than 2 million litres of water since this operation started,” he said.

The spokesman for the Working on Fire programme, Linton Rensburg, thanked the community for showing support to all fire-fighters who are part of the operation.

“People of Cape Town have been very humbling in their support. They’ve given food, water and many helpful things to all the fire-fighters. That is commendable,” he added.

Christian said that although the fire had not been contained as yet, “we remain optimistic that we will be able to have extinguished the fires before the end of the week”.

“Our plan is to douse all the fires by the end of the week. However we need to point out that the weather has not been kind to us. We’ve had strong winds and extreme hot days - these conditions negatively affect our work. If the negative situation persists, we might need to call for reinforcements,” he said.

He praised all fire-fighters who are part of the operation.

“We must particularly thank the young men and women in the EPWP who are putting their lives on the line to protect human life as well as well as property in the affected areas. These youngsters are our heroes! They are not getting a salary for their work, instead they are receiving a monthly stipend for their heroic work,” he said.

The Working on Fire fire-fighters have expressed confidence that “working together with all stakeholders we will be able to douse the fires by the end of the week”.

“We are proud of being part of this bold team of fire-fighters who are determined to extinguish these fires. We believe that with the training, experience and support we received from the EPWP, we will be able to stop these fires,” the fire-fighter’s team leader Bonga Bekwa said.

The community of Cape Town also hailed the EPWP’s involvement in the operation.    

“It is inspiring to see these brave young people are enduring the most difficult situations to fight for our community. We are proud of them and may the Government invest more resources on recruiting more youngsters on such social upliftment programmes,” Lisa Clinton, a resident of Muizenberg said.

Issued by the Department of Communicatio on behalf of National Department of Public Works