Santam on alert to fight seasonal fires

Santam on alert to fight seasonal fires

13 Jan 2012

Stay safe

Almost all of the fires that devastate farmlands, grasslands, forests, homes, businesses and livestock are ignited by people. Yet broader environmental factors such as shifting weather patterns and growing human development mean that we contend today with more fires than we did in the past; with bigger fires than in the past; and with fires that cause more damage today than they did a decade or two ago.

Extreme weather conditions coupled with heat and strong winds are significant factors in the fires that are raging through parts of the Western Cape causing millions of Rands of damage and razing several homes and businesses to the ground over a matter of a day or two.

Authorities are on high alert as strong winds prevail and temperatures soar sparking fire warnings across the province. The South African Weather Service issued a heatwave warning this week for the West Coast district, predicting temperatures spiking around 40ºC.

Short-term insurance leader, Santam, has been paying a lot more attention to fire, and fire management in the last four to five years. "Fire, and the damage it causes, is of enormous concern to us," says John Melville, Head of Risk Services at Santam, "It is one of the factors that impacts on sustainability of the short-term insurance industry here and all over the world, and deserves as much attention as floods, for example, deserve in scenario planning not only for individual clients, but also for deeper sustainability of insurers and the sector."

Santam is working to understand fire and help people manage it better to both limit the number of fires that occur and also to curtail the fire damage typically witnessed this week in the Cape Winelands where nearly 2000 hectares of land was destroyed in a mountain fire near Tulbagh.

"We know which parts of the country are vulnerable to fire at different times of the year," he says. "We understand what causes these fires, and how to help prevent them. The challenge lies in forming co-operative partnerships with local government, with regulators and with communities to bring collective determination to fight fire and to bring to the bare minimum the damage it causes, or has the potential to cause." 

"Fire-fighting units must be capacitated and deployed to maximize the extent to which high risk areas can be accessed within a 25-minute response time.  International research has consistently found that the capacity to respond to wildfires within this time frame is the critical factor in damage containment.  To this end, communities must also be mobilized for effective communication, prevention and risk reduction."  

Santam is a private sector partner of Working on Fire (WoF), a broad-based, integrated fire management initiative to address the causes of runaway fires in South Africa, and to help communities to manage fire and to extinguish little fires before they become devastating, all-engulfing blazes. Santam works with WoF to lobby municipalities for safer building regulations; to educate communities on fire hazards and to better understand the specific fire risks of particular industries, communities and regions in South Africa. 

"We are continually examining and discussing the full range of risks that the industry faces in an ever-shifting macro context and environment," Melville says. "It demands ongoing attention to risk areas, not only for the sustainability of the industry, but also for continued economic growth and for continued value for money services to clients.

"Santam supports WoF for a number of reasons. The initiative trains hand-crew firefighters in local communities, thereby creating job opportunities and helping to alleviate poverty. We also work with the City of Cape Town around collaborative opportunities to improve the city's fire and rescue services." 

Working on Fire reports that over five months in 2005 (the most recent data to hand), it assisted in fighting more than 1 000 fires across South Africa. About 100 people died in 2 000 shack settlement fires in Cape Town in 2005, it says. More than 8 000 shacks were destroyed and about 28 000 people were left destitute as a result of fire. 

"Clearly," says Melville, "socio-economics and development patterns play a significantly influential role in this problem. It's an issue that's going to take concerted, and collaborative effort and will to address and solve. Santam is determined to be a part of that collaboration so that we can help alleviate the tragic loss that people suffer when fires burn out of control… and so that we can contribute to long-term sustainability of our sector and industry, too through better containment and management of underwriting losses."