VISKOP’s dream homes burned at a rate of R1-million a minute.
These estimates came from Keith Snyman, chairman of the lifestyle development’s board of trustees, and developer-builder Dough Kunhardt yesterday.
They were speaking in the aftermath of Friday’s gale, which sent clumps of flaming thatch flying arrow-like through the air causing the blaze to jump from home to home.
Ten homes and a flat on the lower flanks of Viskop Hill overlooking the Chefana (Cefane) River were razed with shocking speed and ferocity.
While South Africans look forward to celebrate heritage and joyfully braai today, Viskop residents, assessors and one forensic expert were picking through their ruins.
Snyman said one home owner was not insured, while another had not insured the contents of the household.
He and Kunhardt agreed that damage of about R60-million was wreaked during 60 minutes of fire, wind and dense smoke.
Snyman said: “Everybody’s trying to look after themselves financially to see whether they can build again.”
Emotional e-mails from residents in Johannesburg and Cape Town heaped praise and gratitude on Kunhardt, 64, for putting his life at risk.
At noon yesterday, the Dispatch found Kunhardt on the site of one of two tiled homes in the fiery row which did not burn.
Kunhardt reluctantly showed the Dispatch burnt fingertips and grazes to his hands, elbows and chest. He declined medical advice to have his red, puffy eyes treated.
He said Viskop had been his vision and life’s work from the age of 20.
A neighbour, Ted Keenan, said Kunhardt came close to dying high up on one of the thatched roofs.
Kunhardt said he heard shouts to get off because flames were underneath the roof.
Two fellow fire-fighters fled for their life, taking the ladder with them and forgetting him.
Kunhardt stopped digging burning clumps from the roof and realised he was stranded.
He lay down and went for a controlled descent using his hands and forearms as brakes, “but I was going faster and faster”.
He dropped 3m onto a cement roof and managed to land and roll but still had to jump to safety across a 3m-deep, 2m-wide gap onto a wall.
His actions were spurred on by the quick appearance of scores of residents, business owners and employees, farmers and staff from around the district who bolstered a struggling crew of Amathole municipal fire-fighters.
“They came from Olivewood, African Heartland, Cefani Resort, Buccaneers, and Barefoot Cafe. Black and white.”
Chintsa East boom guard Simon Kongela and others bounced a BMW with a locked steering out of a garage.
Earlier, as Kunhardt was about to have his builder’s tea at 9am, Gary Cairns from Cefani called saying smoke was coming from Rex
Tomlinson’s home.
Kunhardt rushed to the scene but by 10:10am realised the last house in the line was gone.
He recalled thinking: “This is stuffed. Now there is only farmland to burn,” and walked away from the devastation to his home on the
water’s edge and made himself
“a cup of tea”.
Later, when he stripped to shower he found a blackened hole in the gusset of his underpants the size of a R5 coin which he intends to frame above his bar.
He said the fire started in a kitchen in the Tomlinson home which was locked and unoccupied. He said the home was built to comprehensive professional specifications.
Speaking with a rasp in his voice, Kunhardt, a pioneering Nahoon Reef surfer, and endurance paddle-skier, whose hands are thick and hardened from 42 years of civils and building, said: “I don’t want any money out of it, but I am available to play a major role in the rebuilding of Viskop. I just want to help. People who built here did so from the heart. They saved. They are not mega-wealthy.”
Asked if thatch would be used in future, he said: “Absolutely not!” — mikel@dispatch.co.za
VIDEO: Burning R1m a minute
These estimates came from Keith Snyman, chairman of the lifestyle development’s board of trustees, and developer-builder Dough Kunhardt yesterday.
They were speaking in the aftermath of Friday’s gale, which sent clumps of flaming thatch flying arrow-like through the air causing the blaze to jump from home to home.
Ten homes and a flat on the lower flanks of Viskop Hill overlooking the Chefana (Cefane) River were razed with shocking speed and ferocity.
While South Africans look forward to celebrate heritage and joyfully braai today, Viskop residents, assessors and one forensic expert were picking through their ruins.
Snyman said one home owner was not insured, while another had not insured the contents of the household.
He and Kunhardt agreed that damage of about R60-million was wreaked during 60 minutes of fire, wind and dense smoke.
Snyman said: “Everybody’s trying to look after themselves financially to see whether they can build again.”
Emotional e-mails from residents in Johannesburg and Cape Town heaped praise and gratitude on Kunhardt, 64, for putting his life at risk.
At noon yesterday, the Dispatch found Kunhardt on the site of one of two tiled homes in the fiery row which did not burn.
Kunhardt reluctantly showed the Dispatch burnt fingertips and grazes to his hands, elbows and chest. He declined medical advice to have his red, puffy eyes treated.
He said Viskop had been his vision and life’s work from the age of 20.
A neighbour, Ted Keenan, said Kunhardt came close to dying high up on one of the thatched roofs.
Kunhardt said he heard shouts to get off because flames were underneath the roof.
Two fellow fire-fighters fled for their life, taking the ladder with them and forgetting him.
Kunhardt stopped digging burning clumps from the roof and realised he was stranded.
He lay down and went for a controlled descent using his hands and forearms as brakes, “but I was going faster and faster”.
He dropped 3m onto a cement roof and managed to land and roll but still had to jump to safety across a 3m-deep, 2m-wide gap onto a wall.
His actions were spurred on by the quick appearance of scores of residents, business owners and employees, farmers and staff from around the district who bolstered a struggling crew of Amathole municipal fire-fighters.
“They came from Olivewood, African Heartland, Cefani Resort, Buccaneers, and Barefoot Cafe. Black and white.”
Chintsa East boom guard Simon Kongela and others bounced a BMW with a locked steering out of a garage.
Earlier, as Kunhardt was about to have his builder’s tea at 9am, Gary Cairns from Cefani called saying smoke was coming from Rex
Tomlinson’s home.
Kunhardt rushed to the scene but by 10:10am realised the last house in the line was gone.
He recalled thinking: “This is stuffed. Now there is only farmland to burn,” and walked away from the devastation to his home on the
water’s edge and made himself
“a cup of tea”.
Later, when he stripped to shower he found a blackened hole in the gusset of his underpants the size of a R5 coin which he intends to frame above his bar.
He said the fire started in a kitchen in the Tomlinson home which was locked and unoccupied. He said the home was built to comprehensive professional specifications.
Speaking with a rasp in his voice, Kunhardt, a pioneering Nahoon Reef surfer, and endurance paddle-skier, whose hands are thick and hardened from 42 years of civils and building, said: “I don’t want any money out of it, but I am available to play a major role in the rebuilding of Viskop. I just want to help. People who built here did so from the heart. They saved. They are not mega-wealthy.”
Asked if thatch would be used in future, he said: “Absolutely not!” — mikel@dispatch.co.za
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