Introduction

Abstract

In January 2000, two wildfires swept through the Cape Peninsula’s UNESCO World Heritage Site for Nature, the Table Mountain National Park, burning down houses and destroying property on the wildland-urban interface (WUI) of South Africa’s parliamentary capital. There were more than 120 fires in the region on that one ‘fire-storm Sunday’. These fires made a big impact regionally, nationally and (briefly) internationally, assisted by media images of flames and smoke racing over the Peninsula’s iconic Table Mountain chain and threatening homes on the slopes below. A book was published on ‘The Great Fire of January 2000’, with all proceeds going to the ‘Santam/Cape Argus Ukuvuka: Operation Firestop Campaign’, an initiative supported by local communities, conservation organisations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), local authorities and the private sector. The Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, African National Congress (ANC) struggle hero Ronnie Kasrils, commissioned an inquiry which was subtitled ‘towards improved veld fire management in South Africa’. Following a decade of political turmoil and environmental management neglect, the fires were seen as an environmental wake-up call not just for the Peninsula, but for the country as a whole.1KeywordsAfrican National CongressCape Floristic RegionCape PeninsulaUNESCO World Heritage SiteMediterranean Climate RegionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.