Big Bushfire in Namibia
A large bushfire in Namibia, Africa, has been burning for a week. The article details what kind of equipment they have for fighting this fire. It isn't much. Here is an excerpt (from allAfrica.com):
By yesterday morning, the fire had swept through 500,000 hectares of land, ruining large quantities of both harvested and unharvested crops while large tracts of prime grazing areas were simply reduced to ashes and thick clouds of smoke rose into the air.
500,000 hectares converts to 1,235,526 acres - big fire!
Those involved in the efforts to put out the fire have been unable to do so because they were only equipped with two tanks with capacities of 5 000-litres and 6,000-litres that can only be mounted on a trailer pulled by either a tractor or a truck, while villagers also tried in vain to use freshly-chopped tree branches.Other fire-fighting equipment in the hands of forestry officials at Katima Mulilo, are four mobile water tanks that each can be filled with a maximum of 3,000 litres of the liquid.
He says the tractor is too slow and inadequate for such a challenging task, while the only truck, a 6x6 Mercedes Benz truck suitable for such emergencies was sent to Windhoek in 2002 for repairs but has yet to be fixed because of financial constraints.
This shows just how lucky we are. I can't imagine trying to extinguish a 1.2 million acre fire with a handful of broken down trucks and water tanks on trailers.
Here is some info on Namibia for those that are interested.
