Our PH informed us that the entire Matesti unit 5 has burned in the last few days, Since we had some wives and hunters that hadn't been to Africa yet our booking agent recommended we cancel.He didn't think they would enjoy there first trip driving around in the char for two weeks. One of our groups transfered over to the Save, but It was too late notice to move everyone to another location. So back to the deer lease and Geese in November and I'll be in Colorado hunting mountain Lion in January instead. Not Africa but there's always something else to hunt.

Man I hate to hear that.

That sucks! I know you were looking forward to that hunt.

I just came back from that area and it is very burned up there. The smoke is heavy and the grass burned across our access roads for a number of days. On the way back to Victoria Falls we were driving through flames on both sides of the road.
I have a few photos but we couldn't stop to really get good photos.
I might have braved the trip if it were me knowing ahead of time it anyway but for my wife definitely not.
Frank

Wow! Glad to see you got out of there ok. Forest fires only good for next year's hunts.

Those fires take an awfull toll on wildlife. Much of the game can move on but IIRC the smaler reptiles and small mammals can be decimated.

How big an area has been burnt?

FB

A friend of mine looked it up on the satellite photos and said there was a 200 mile fire line at one point last week.
Frank

Jerry,
What a bummer. Hope you're booked for next year.
Russ

One rain and it will be good as new, minus some of the bugs

quote:

Originally posted by Fallow Buck:
Those fires take an awfull toll on wildlife. Much of the game can move on but IIRC the smaler reptiles and small mammals can be decimated.

How big an area has been burnt?

FB

In August (or early September?) Matetsi Unit 2 burned. It jumped the road to Unit 3, but the fire was contained after taking out about 40% of Unit 3.

On about the 23rd of September (if memory serves?), a fire got out of hand in Unit 5. (We actually never saw anybody fighting it in Unit 5, so I'm not sure how exact a description it is to say "it got out of hand". For all I saw, it could also have been "nobody cared").

On the afternoon about 16:00, the firefront reached North to the road to Unit 3. Most of that road had firebreaks burnt, but there were places with no break.

In Unit 3, area management was desperately short of resources. The (HHK) company cruiser had gone off on a fuel run, so only an old (SUV) Landcrusier, that had to be jump started, and on which the motor could not be turned off again, was available to move firecrews around. So we pitched in our hunting cruiser, including an inexperienced crew consisting of a less than decisive PH, 4 unwilling trackers/drivers/game scouts, and one bewildered client.

We managed to round up an additional crew from the Inyathi Hunters' camp in Unit 3. In spite of the legal strife about who can occupy that camp, the guys came out and fought the fire with us. Kudos to them for that effort!

We started to burn the parts of the Unit 3/5 road with no firebreak. In this endeavour, and for the rest of that horrible afternoon and night, our most hi-tech piece of fire fighting equipment was 1 (one) rake! Other than that, we had to rely on what branches we could cut (leafy if available) 3 cigarette lighters and as much enthusiasm and courage we could muster.

In spite of our efforts, the fire jumped the road to Unit 3 about 17:00. But in a mad rush, it was contained to a vlei area just across the road. This was largely thanks to a firebreak quickly burned across a creek by the Unit 3 PH apprentices and the Unit 3 crew, as well as some desperate fighting by the hunting truck and Inyathi crews. By about 18:00, we belived we had the fire contained, congratulated each other and had a well deserved beer.

By about 18:30, a radio call came in that the fire had jumped further up the road, and our "victory celebrations" went to hell in a basket. What followed blurs into a series of vague memories of attempted stands, desperate firebreaks blown to smithereen by a roaring firefront, of careening around the firefront in a cruiser and being happy we did not turn over the vehicle (good driving, Steve!), and time and again, stand after stand, road after road lost to the fire. It was a heart breaking experience - at least for somebody unfamiliar with forest or bush fires. By about 01:30 we had finally managed to burn a break far enough ahead of the fire front, that we had managed to finish the break before it was reached by the front.

The heroes of that dreadful day and night (as well as the following days and nights of fire fighting) were the PH apprentices of HHK in Unit 3. They were the ones to decide where to make a stand, and the ones decisive enough to make a difference. Desmond and Mitch, you may be young of age, but you sure did a man's job in those horrible days!

All that night (Sep 23 - 24), the fire continued to burn (unchecked?) in Unit 5. On our way to camp, we could see the fire was now burning in the Hwange Park. It continued to do so for the entire night, and by the next day (Sep 24), Unit 3 management decided to approach Parks Authorities to attempt to protect the Isilwane Camp - which, although located inside the Park, was used by Unit 3 for their clients. Parks agreed to the plans for counter burning suggested, and in the evening of the 24th of September, the fires were burning all the way around camp. Another long night was on for the fire crews!

Late evening (Sep 24), it looked as if things were going well. But in the middle of the night, the wind changed and the fire swept back towards camp. I'm not sure if this is what woke me up, or whether it was just a consequence of sleeping poorly in old age. When I saw that fire and direction it had taken, I could not go back to sleep. Finally, after having been up looking at the fire 3 or 4 times, I mustered the courage to wake up Jumbo Moore (in camp with clients). He in turn contacted Desmond, and the firecrews were off again to set a counterfire to protect the camp from the new direction of danger.

By the evening of the 25th of September, it looked as though the fire had been contained, at least as far as the Isilwane camp and the remainder of Unit 3 was concerned (God only knows how things looked on the Botswana border?). The fire crews of Desmond and Mitch had patrolled the road from the Park to Unit 3 relentlessly, and it looked as if the fire had been contained to the Park. That night (Sep 25 - 26) the fire jumped the road on a tiny stretch and made it into the remaining part of Unit 3.

Because of the good rains Zim enjoyed in the spring of 2008, the grass was unsually high in the Hwange Park and bordering safari areas. But the grass in the Park was kept low at least in places by the higher animal populations. In the safari areas in general, and in the "Little Deka" part of Unit 3 in particular, it was a sea of grass. Once the fire got into the Little Deka area, there was no stopping it. The vleis had so much grass in them, the roads were so narrow, no grading had been done this year due to a faulty tractor, it was a hopeless fight. In the following two days, the remainder of Unit 3 finally burned.

That was all of Unit 2, Unit 5 and Unit 3 as well as much of the Park burned - shall we make a guess at somewhere between 500'000 and 1'000'000 acres, perhaps?. I have no idea how Unit 1, 4 or Botswana fared, but I presume the burn made it to Botswana as well??

I have tried to discuss the bush fires with the local people, and this is the best understanding I could come up with:
1) bush fires are a fact of life, they happen regularly and in most instances the flora and fauna is equipped to cope and recover.
2) you do loose an awful lot of small game, reptiles (tortoises etc) and insects in the process.
3) the large game pretty much seem to be able to move to safety.
4) uncontrolled burns of large amounts of high, dry grass are undesirable as they create temperatures high enough to damage trees.
5) you can loose any amounts of infrastructure (camps, out-buildings, bore hole pumps, game hides etc etc) to these fires
6) hunters who come in immediately after the fire will find little to no game.
7) in lower lying areas (vleis) holding sufficient moisture, new grass will appear within a matter of 2-3 weeks, drawing in game like magnets.
8) game even uses the burnt areas for browsing (we never saw Kudu bulls in the green vleis, only in the burnt areas).
9) experiencing these burns up close is a terrifying experience and fighting them with the equipment we had was heartbreaking.

- mike

Does anyone know which Unit
HHK hunts? Thanks

quote:

Originally posted by 577ne:
Does anyone know which Unit
HHK hunts? Thanks

Unit 3
- mike

Sorry, Jerry, bad luck... hope things work out for '09!

MIke,

Very well written and intersting report. Nature certainly can be cruel in many ways, not the least of which is a wild fire.
Chin up.

Bill

Jerry
I hate to hear that. Wish you well in 09'

When I was in Zambia late August, the villagers were starting fires almost daily...sometimes in areas no where near where they were going to put their crops...sometimes burning a few hundred acres in just a couple of days. I don't get their "firestarting' antics....if indeed that's what caused it.

Another case of TIA.....

Gary
DRSS
NRA Lifer
SCI
DSC

Jerry

Unbelievable! I'm not sure what concessions around VFs and the Matetse didn't get hit by fire this year. We watched the horizon glowing one night while on the Woodlands, and got burnt out of Unit-2.

The good news is that you'll be well rested when my buffalo and sable get to you. When you go to put that scowl on the bulls face just think of your cancelled hunt, look in the mirror, and duplicate that.

(Maybe there is a reason it wasn't meant to be. Good luck on the next one.)

Ken