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Who’s Setting South Africa’s Winelands On fire?

Who’s Setting South Africa’s Winelands On fire?

By Alex Crawford | From Sky News

Fires which have been sweeping parts of South Africa’s Winelands regions have already cost millions in Rand in destroyed forestry and vineyards.

They come as the country is coping with a string of gloomy predictions about its economic growth and the South African Rand has plummeted against foreign currencies.

Wine Farmer Victor Sperling whose family owns the Del Haim farm near Stellenbosch said 95% of their forestry business had been destroyed.

“We’re trying to save the remaining 5% but it’s not looking good,” he said as helicopters dropped hundreds of litres of water to try to douse the flames.

He said his family had paid for helicopters to come and drop huge buckets of water over the flames after failing to bring the fire under control for the third day running.

The loss of the family’s forestry business after 16 years of nurturing and growing is estimated at about 3.5m Rand. If the trees had reached maturity, Mr Sterling said the value would have increased fivefold.

There is a growing suspicion that the fire may have been started deliberately adding to the pain of seeing decades of work going up in flames.

Read more at Sky News