Knysna Fires 2017 - The Vulcan Documentary

[@thembisilethela1365]

😢 What an experience!!!! Recently moved to George and seeing Knysna now - I can only imagine how devastating it was for the residence and emergency response services

[@VULCAN_Wildfire-and-Training]

We hope these lessons learned can help with keeping you safe from wildfire risk.

[@GEMINICT]

This is an absolutely fantastic documentary - I am going to be using it for my Environmental Economics classes as a case study. Thank you to the making and sharing of such a valuable lesson.

[@VULCAN_Wildfire-and-Training]

An absolute pleasure Richard.

[@cuankorsten]

Hard to believe it's been a year already. Thank you for making this documentary. Thank you to everyone who went above and beyond. Condolences to everyone who suffered loss. Keep on, keep strong.

[@mattwhite1345]

Well done Vulcan, great investigation with important lessons learnt. Keep leading the way and setting the standard for wildfire services in South Africa.

[@VULCAN_Wildfire-and-Training]

Thank you Matt :-)

[@moyadahcow9594]

This was a scary time for me and many other people who lived in knysna

[@dannykruger122]

same

[@lookforitcx]

Brilliant documentary! Pity about the little Knysna spelling error in the beginning hehe. Otherwise beautifully put together. Well done!

[@VULCAN_Wildfire-and-Training]

Hi Eon, yes! You saw that... (groan) I have corrected that and the version that is on Vimeo has the correct spelling. Unfortunately if we replace the video we will lose all the comments and shares, unlike Vimeo where one can update a video file without losing the URL. Thank you though, we truly hope this can be spread and raise awareness of the risks that still exist all over South Africa from wildfires.

[@elizabethnel6613]

Very well presented. It was a nightmare but it as wonderful to see how people stood together. One thing though - although people did suffer and there was tragic loss of life, there is no mention of the suffering and devastation inflicted on the wildlife and domestic animals. The animal welfare organisations in the area worked 24/7, the local vets stood together and euthanased hundreds of badly burned buck, cattle, horses, cats, dogs, even tortoises. The suffering inflicted on our wildlife, domestic pets and farm animals was enormous and we owe a great thank you to the many selfless volunteers who dealt with that grim result of the fires. Many animals were found up against fences where they died, unable to escape from the seering flames. Domestic pets were lost in the enormity of the event, and it is thanks to our selfless animal welfare organisations and vetinerians that many were found and reunited with their families. It was also heart warming to see how many families took their beloved pets with when they were evacuated.

[@VULCAN_Wildfire-and-Training]

Hi Elizabeth. Those are truly sad stories to hear and we were aware on a personal level of the loss of so many animals. We were very limited with the time we had to construct this documentary though as our main focus was to create the Situational Analysis of the Knysna Fires 2017 Lessons Learned Report. As you can imagine this was a massive undertaking. We hope that this report will soon be released to the public as it has been handed into the WC Government for them to finalise their internal processes.

[@robertsimpson8791]

Fascinating to watch, we live in the UK over 5000 miles away but have close friends who live in Knysna and it was terrible to hear what they were going through and the feeling of helplessness being so far away!!!! Thankfully they and their home were safe.

[@VULCAN_Wildfire-and-Training]

Thank you Robert. Yes, we too have family and friends up there and the devastation we witnessed when we arrived during the incident was deeply upsetting, what really affected us is how many of the people of the Knysna area are still traumatised. We went up to start documenting as much as possible so we can hopefully learn from this and start to drive the behavioural change needed. This will happen again if we all don't take the steps to change things. I truly hope this film can aid that.

[@MyJellycat]

Well done . Most informative.

[@janinedevilliers510]

My sincere condolences to families and prayers for all those that lost their lives, including the animals. My prayers are too with those that lost everything. Lives are the most important. I salute all the brave woman and men who fought with everything they had during this terrible time, in whatever role they played. I lived in Oyster Bay in the Eastern Cape at the time. I was driving towards Plet on my way to George and saw the fires in Plet. I turned back. I too had a very dire personal situation I was dealing with. Another very important mention is a thank you to the Spar, and places requesting donations for the destitute. The Spar in George put cages for collection in their shops with lists of specific needed donations. That helped so that people could buy very specific items not random things not needed in a disaster. It is important to mention that every single person can help even if it is not them that are being directly affected. Every bottle of water, soap, tooth brushes, tooth paste, food, pet food, medicine, clothes, shoes, shelter, extra tents, blankets, can help in such a disaster. Like in Thailand after the Tsunmami disaster they now have warning sirens. People must practice evac drills. People must be drilled to move to the highest points. And food and disaster goods are stored in bunkers. In a fire situation it is difficult to have a building as it could burn. Multiple sites around South Africa for potential disaster need to be identified and built to store supplies, perhaps underground. A chain of supply can perhaps be moved to disaster areas be it by road, air or sea. This fire fighting situation was also very difficult due to the gale force winds blowing. Blessings to all. Thank you for this documentary. 🙏

[@aceupyt]

directed energy weapons, wake up