UNDERGROUND FIRE IN MOREBENG NOT A VOLCANO

Capricorn District Municipality Fire Services was this week notified of an underground fire burning to the surface in the Morebeng dam area, Molemole after it was discovered by residents and started to trend on social media with rumours that it was a ‘volcano’.

At first, it was a small smouldering which progressively grew up to 15 metres in size when it began to trend, and upon investigation by the Municipality’s Fire Services and Environmental Management Services, it was established that the burning area is an old wetland which had a fire back in September when the reeds and grass in the area burned and due to the long drought, the soil cracked and some of the burnt ambers fell into the open cracks and ignited the organic material in that dried up wetland.

The Municipality’s Chief Fire Officer for Molemole, Mr Wynand Els explained that “when I took a multi-gas metre to measure the presence of any gases that are in the atmosphere, there was no sulphur or any explosive gases like methane or anything in the vicinity, but only carbon monoxide, which is a normal smoke. There were no poisonous gases present”.

The team went further to use geographical maps of the previous years to establish if the site was ever used as a landfill site, which was not the case. They then dug up the ground for about two metres deep to determine the depth of the underground fire and the type of material that was burning, which confirmed that it was the organic material that accumulated over centuries and served as ‘fuel’ that burned underground over the past dry seasons until the burning smouldered to the surface this week. The digging was also done “to remove the ‘fuel’ because it’s not possible to do it with water as we don’t have the necessary penetration to reach two metres deep with water”, said Els. “It was therefore not a volcano”, he declared.

The area has been cordoned off to protect it from grazing livestock and the public until the fire has been dealt with.

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