7 February 2025
Pine and thick stands of Port Jackson willow are growing inside the perimeter fence of the ammunition stores on South African Navy land in Klawer Valley above Simon’s Town. The Castle Rock fire of December 2023 came close to igniting these stands of invasive alien vegetation. Photos: Steve Kretzmann
The land managed by the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) in the Cape Peninsula is a serious fire hazard, experts say. In violation of the law, the SANDF has failed to clear invasive alien vegetation off the land and maintain fire breaks.
The SANDF is one of the largest managers of land in and around Cape Town, in charge of land at Wingfield, Ysterplaat, Youngsfield, the 9th SA Infantry, as well as extensive land in and above Simon’s Town in Klawer Valley.
Almost all these pieces of land seem to be infested with invasive alien vegetation such as Port Jackson (Acacia saligna), rooikrans (Acacia cyclops), wattle, and gum trees, which must either be eradicated or controlled in terms of regulations under the National Environmental Management and Biodiversity Act. A cursory inspection by GroundUp reveals the SANDF is not doing so.
But it is the land above Simon’s Town which is of most concern to wildfire control experts.
“Invasive plants are the single biggest threat in terms of wildfires in South Africa,” says retired Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) deputy director-general Guy Preston.
Preston, who founded Working on Fire while at the DFFE, noted that all 56 buildings that were destroyed in the Table Mountain fires of 2000 were surrounded by invasive plants, as were seven of the eight buildings which burned down in the fire of 2015. The one house that was damaged from the fire on the Kalk Bay mountainside last year was also surrounded by invasive alien vegetation.
Yet GroundUp has observed that land inside the perimeter of the SANDF ammunition stores on Navy land above Simon’s Town is infested with invasive alien vegetation. There is also invasive alien vegetation on land surrounding the signals school, and there is no evidence of firebreaks here or at other SANDF bases in Cape Town.
Invasive alien vegetation such as the Port Jackson willow grows around the navy’s signals school in Klawer Valley above Simon’s Town. There are no firebreaks around the signals school, nor around other naval facilities in the area.
Cape Peninsula Fire Protection Association (CPFPA) chairperson Philip Prins said neither the SANDF, nor the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure, which is the overriding authority for the management of state land, were members of the association.
Yet the National Veld and Forest Fire Act of 1998 states quite clearly: “The owner in respect of state land must join any fire protection association registered in the area in which the land lies.”
Department of Public Works and Infrastructure spokesperson Thami Mchunu said the Department of Defence and Military Veterans was “the allocated user” of land at SANDF bases in and around Cape Town, and was responsible for clearing alien vegetation and maintaining firebreaks on the properties.
Mchunu said the DPWI was not a member of the fire protection association, but had “made contact” with the association on 27 January and “initiated the process of membership registration”.
Questions sent by GroundUp to the Department of Defence received no response, and calls to the head of communications went unanswered.
Prins said he’d had meetings with various people in the SANDF about becoming a member and managing the fire risks on the land.
He said at first the association was meeting with a commander who “kept us on a string”, but had since met with the Lieutenant-Colonel in charge of SANDF land in the province.
Prins said the Lieutenant-Colonel had made it clear the SANDF had no money to pay the association’s membership fee. He said membership in respect of SANDF-managed land in the Cape Peninsula would be less than R30,000 a year.
However, Prins said the association last week got a call from the public works department saying they wanted to sign up all government properties.
According to a government booklet explaining the laws on wildfires and their prevention, fire protection associations develop and apply wildfire management strategy, and develop rules binding the members of the association. Membership is voluntary for private landowners, but compulsory for “organs of state”.
Invasive alien Port Jackson willow and gum growing on land controlled by the navy above Simon’s Town following the Castle Rock fire which swept over the mountains in December 2023.
Prins said the association visits members’ properties and identifies wildfire risks, after which the landowner provides a plan with timelines on how to reduce the risk, such as creating firebreaks and clearing invasive alien vegetation. As a result, in law, the presumption of negligence does not apply to members of a fire protection association. This means that if civil proceedings are brought against a member due to losses suffered from a wildfire that started on, or was spread from, the member’s land, the complainant has to prove that the member was negligent. If the defendant is not a member of a fire protection association, they are presumed to have been negligent and have to prove they were not.
Thus as it currently stands, the SANDF is vulnerable to litigation by neighbouring landowners in the case of losses suffered by a wildfire.
Prins, along with others in the firefighting services, said the SANDF no longer has the resources to respond to fires on its own property.
Google Earth images show that the Castle Rock fire in December 2023 which burned 3,400 hectares from Simon’s Town to Scarborough, burned right up to, and in some cases over, the perimeter of the ammunition depot on navy land in Klawer Valley, which is infested with fire-accelerating invasive alien vegetation.
Asked how firefighters managed to prevent the fire raging through the depot, NCC Environmental Services owner Dean Ferreira said: “How do you spell luck?”
Ferreira, whose company is contracted by SANParks to fight wildfires on its land, said they threw all their resources at keeping the fire from raging through the depot. Although the fire did cross the perimeter at one point, it didn’t cause any damage.
He said it was not the first time in his 40 years of experience that a fire had threatened the depot, but it is difficult for ordnance to detonate. The heat would need to be extreme, he said, for artillery shells to explode. However, they were told “I don’t know how many times” to get out within a 2km radius from the depot, but they stayed and fought the fire, partly because NCC also had a private landowner who is a client in the valley.
Ferreira said in the past, the SANDF could be relied on to help fight wildfires as it had equipment and lots of fit young people, but its ability to do so had deteriorated.
“When we had a fire, the navy would come en masse … now I don’t think they can manage a braai fire.”
A screenshot from Google Earth shows how the Castle Rock fire of December 2023 was prevented from raging through the SA Navy ammunition depot, which is the buildings along the bottom centre of the image.
SANParks fire manager Justin Buchman said the intensity of the Castle Rock fire was partly due to invasive alien vegetation on SANDF land.
“Part of the intensity of that fire, and why we couldn’t stop it where we would have liked to – such as in Klawer Valley (where the SA Navy has several facilities) – was because of the amount of alien vegetation,” said Buchman.
He said people living next to SANDF land around Simon’s Town were clearing firebreaks, but the SANDF land was so infested with invasive alien vegetation that this wouldn’t make a difference.
He said the fact that the SANDF ammunition stores were surrounded by invasive aliens made fighting any fire there “extremely challenging”.
But he said now that much of the navy land above Simon’s Town had burned, the SANDF had an opportunity to “get on top” of clearing the invasive alien vegetation.
However, he warned: “If they don’t follow up with invasive clearing now, in five years it will be ten times worse.”
He said Table Mountain National Park had tried to engage with the navy, but the “challenge is that there is quite a frequent change of command, and each new commander comes in with their own ideas and priorities”.
“But we have had good relationships in the past.”
Regarding a Department of Defence five-year tender for invasive alien vegetation clearing and the cutting of firebreaks around navy facilities around Simon’s Town advertised in July 2023, Buchman said he was not aware of it.
“What we have noticed is there has been no cutting of firebreaks.”
GroundUp has been unable to find any online information on the award of the tender, nor did the Department of Defence respond to questions about it.