The Krugersdorp team was dispatched together with a 3000 litre water carrier fire truck to the site to help put out the fire. According to the Assistant Project Manager, Phineas Mphela, the initial cause of the fire was as result of an exploded electric transformer on the 28 September 2020.

“The paper and plastics in the landfill site caught fire as a result of this explosion and continued to burn before the rain started. When it rained, it became an underground fire causing massive and unpleasant smoke that covered the area”.

‘‘We met Pikit Up officials to assess how to assist and to suppress the fire. The option was to bring a small number of firefighters and more water to wet the burning soil,’’ he said.

Grant Walters, from Reactive Administrative Enforcement in the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries requested WOF firefighters to assist.

General Manager, Stephen Boyes said that the team is there to help put out the smoke by focusing on the underground fire and they hope that it will be put out by the end of today.

“Our firefighters are professionally trained to suppress veld and forest fires and we need to take care of our environment because there is a huge need to mitigate against these types of environmental disasters which causes air pollution and further exacerbates global warming,” said Boyes.