FIRE PREPERATION:

JULY 2010 :
MAKING FIRE BREAKS :

A part of our resource guardianship course and the second years junior manager course we have to learn how and why we cut fire breaks. Places we cut were: Around the chalets and the Makhato houses.

Before we started, our second years did all the planning and made a presentation for the Managers. They waited for them to approve this plan before we could start. As soon as the plan was approved, they presented the same plan to us just to make sure we understood what was going to happen and why...

Reasons for doing fire preparations are: it is winter and the grass is dry, running a big risk for the farm burning down and animals dying, and there are lots of very expensive assets that could be lost if a fire occurred.They established-by looking at the previous places where it has burnt and where the hazards are. According to that they planned how the fire breaks must be cut, where they must be and how big they must be.

We used various equipment:

• A tractor with a 3m slasher
• A tractor with a 1.5m slasher ( both of which were driven by Sondela staff)
• Pangas
• Rakes
• Forks
• Weed eater
• Brush cutters
• Saws
• Axes
  

We were also given a pair of gloves and goggles as part of the OHS procedures, especially when working with Weed eaters and Brush cutters. We were also told to wear long pants and the correct shoes for our own safety. The tractors went first and started to slash the grass and smaller bushes to make the job easier for the people working with the brush cutters. The Brush cutters cut the smaller trees that the tractor couldn't drive over.

After they were all done we came with the weed eaters, to cut the grass close to trees that they couldn't reach. We also used panga's, axes and saws to clean the lower parts of the trees. The forks were used to move the branches we had cleaned of the trees onto heaps, to be removed by the third tractor that had a trailer to take the greens to the compost heap. These tree's mostly had thorns, so using the forks made our jobs much easier.

I must say it was a lot of hard work, although it doesn't sound like it. But we really enjoyed it a lot. Being in the veldt and away from all the havoc on the other side made us feel much more relaxed. We had fun as a group and got to know each other on different levels. Teamwork was also a part of us, especially when the girls struggled to remove something - the boys always came to our rescue. It was always about who had the bigger muscles...

Thanks for the great experience, it was definitely something else...