Blaze of destruction

Scrambling into a nearby river, after waking to "big, leaping flames" engulfing their homes, was the only way some residents managed to escape Tuesday's fires in the Overberg which gutted at least 10 houses.

"We had to just get out. The house was already on fire. It was filled with big, leaping flames. There wasn't time to get anything, we just had to run," said Stanford farmer Henry Barends outside his gutted home, one of five destroyed in the town along with two caravans and a number of sheds.

There were a number of other blazes in Genadendal, in the mountains above Greyton, Stanford and in Betty's Bay, which destroyed some homes. There were no human casualties but some animals succumbed to the flames.

The Overberg District Municipality's chief fire officer, Reinhard Geldenhuys, said if the Greyton fire had moved down the mountain a number of farms would have been under threat.

He said it was not yet known how many hectares had been destroyed.

Standing outside the charred and still smouldering shell of the house they had lived in for 15 years on the Lochinvar farm in Stanford, Laura and Henry Barends appeared to be in shock as they recalled how they woke at 3am to screaming.

They both ran to a clearing near their home and as the fire spread they saw neighbours running into the Klein River to escape the heat and they followed.

The residents waited in the river until the fire had passed.

"I'll never get over this. We survived but how will we get on from now? Even my dog, cat and a pig were killed," Henry Barends said as he stood in front of a few ceramic ornaments, the only items which had survived the blaze.

His son, Joseph, said he was awoken shortly after 3am by a call on his cellphone.

When he answered all he heard was his father screaming: "Run, run. Get out."

Joseph drove from Botrivier, where he said another fire was burning, to find out what was happening to his father.

"We didn't know if he was being robbed or what. When we got here the fire was huge and we couldn't drive through to see what was happening because it was too dangerous," he said.

Nearby a holiday home and its garage filled with a number of quad bikes had also been razed.

A friend of the owner, who did not want to be named, said someone nearby had been looking after the house and feeding the owner's dog.

"But the dog must have been in the house and couldn't get out. It died in the fire," he said staring at the piles of smoking rubble.

About 100 metres away the charred remains of two caravans and a home were also still smoking. A friend of the farm owner was taking video footage of the damage.

The friend, who also did not want to be named, said some of the gutted homes had been fitted with new roofs just two months ago and a number of chickens had also been killed in the blaze.

"This is tragic because the owner always cleared leaves away which fell on the ground in case of fires. He's vigilant," he said.

A number of tree trunks were still glowing orange and a few small flames could be seen in between charred debris. And further up the road at the Old Oak Farm firefighters were still battling hotspots flaring up on a field.

A team of volunteer firefighters beat at the flames, trying to extinguish them as they spread from shrub to shrub, creating a thick pall of smoke which at times got so thick firefighters had to move away.

Jacques Malan, a relative of the farm's owner, drove a tractor around trying to prevent the flames from spreading while other firefighters hosed a burning electricity pole they feared would collapse.

Three other poles had fallen over and Malan said he suspected that was what had caused the fire.

"At 4am I got a call to say there was a fire on the farm. I rushed here and saw one of the poles had apparently snapped in the gale force winds. It hit another pole which snapped and a third one collapsed. Sparks from that must have caused the fire."

In Betty's Bay five homes were razed by another blaze. - Cape Times