A wildfire roared through the Helderberg Nature Reserve early on Saturday morning, June 11, but was contained the next morning. The City of Cape Town has now confirmed that the reserve will remain closed for the next month.

The city’s Fire and Rescue Service, Biodiversity Management staff and Volunteer Wildfire Services continued with mopping-up operations throughout Sunday until significant amounts of rain started falling in the reserve during the early hours of Monday morning.

Approximately 280 hectares of the reserve have been burnt, however, ecologically, the fire has not had a negative impact as much of the veld was mature and due for a managed ecological burn.

The city’s Biodiversity Management team are currently assessing the damage to the reserve’s infrastructure. Various benches, water bars on the trails and a portion of the boardwalk around the duck pond were destroyed by the fire.