WoF gears up for the upcoming summer fire season

Update

HESSEQUA NEWS - In its determined efforts to combat unemployment, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment Working on Fire (WoF) Programme in the Western Cape has recruited 40 previously unemployed youth from various parts of the province.

The group began their extensive 25-day training in Mpumalanga on Monday 15 August. The training covered advanced firefighting, fire safety and other specialized skills.

The future firefighters were recruited from areas such as townships in Cape Town, Porterville, Mamre, Vredenburg, Kleinmond, Paarl, Bredsdorp, Swellendam, Riversdale, Slangrivier, Goudveld, Plettenberg Bay and Melkhoutfontein.

During their recruitment, the new firefighters did a fitness test and only those who passed were selected.

The General Manager, Melany Duthie-Surtie, said this recruitment was to ensure that the programme is adequately equipped to assist in the next fire season.

"We are going to have another recruitment of about 100 more firefighters including those who specialise in forest fires for forestry support project teams. Next month we will have our annual yellow card training to ensure our current ground crews are ready to tackle the upcoming Summer Fire Season," she said.

The future firefighters that were recruited.