Fire season on the Highveld of South Africa basically starts when grass is dry enough to burn, that's in June/July.
In August it gets a second wind, so to speak, as the August winds begin to blow. In August we typically have strong winds associated with the seasonal adjustment in the various pressure cells around Southern Africa. These air pressure cells start to migrate to their summer pattern positions as the inter tropical convergent zone moves southwards. This results in strong winds across the higher altitude highveld which lead to minor fires becoming major run away catastrophies.
Yesterday there was a fire to the east of us. It was fueled by a strong wind and must have hit a grove of blue gum trees. They have flammable eucalyptus oil in their leaves and this produces black smoke. At one stage the smoke was so thick and dark that it was blocking out the sun and so the fire appeared much closer than it actually was.
After raising the alarm etc. we soon discovered it was not just a couple of hundred meters away but over 5 km away and there were plenty of natural fire breaks in between.
Today we had fires to the North and West. The one to the north was only about 2 km away, as the crow flies, in a game farm. They seemed to get it under control towards evening. The one to the north was still going by the time it was dark.
Darkness falling usually helps since the winds generally die down at night.
The fires gradually petering out at night do make for some lovely photographs.
