Massive fire spreads through the Cape Peninsula

And now again, firefighters have been fighting this massive blaze which started yesterday morning and has spread across more than 3000 hectares.

It seemed to have started above Muizenberg and crossed over towards Noordhoek, Tokai and Chapman's Peak.

I just picked up a Facebook post from Sybrand van der Spuy - who owns Cape Point Vineyards, whose vineyards are right in the middle of all of this fire.

"Thank you so much to everyone that held us in your thoughts this morning, to all the volunteers that arrived at the vineyard to help (including our own employees who pitched in the middle of the night, some on their day off without being asked) and of course to the very brave fire fighters fighting what seems to be an endless task. 
A special word of thanks to Duncan, our winemaker, who was on my roof from 3 o clock this morning trying to keep it wet, and there after with Lizanne, my daughter, spearheading our efforts to save our vineyards and some neigbouring houses.
We lost about 10% of our vineyards and maybe 20% of our harvest. Fortunately no damage to any of our structures.

Devastating though is the damage to the indigenous forest above the vineyards. Folklore has it that Jan Smuts often came to reflect under the huge yellow woods. This will take decades (if ever) to recover. So sad.