Bush fires in Africa

During the winter/cooler months in the majority of Sub-Saharan Africa it is the dry season. With the dry season comes the tourists with their giant 200 mega pixel, single lens reflex, image stabilizing, 400 times optical zoom cameras and to photograph birds, large mammals....etc. Also during these months the bush is ablaze.

These fires are not much of a head turner here in Africa like in Western countries where armies of fire fighters are mobilized along with squadrons of aerial water bombers. No here one drives along with the side of the road burning as long as it isn't affecting you personally then you don't even notice it.

I'm guessing that a lot of them are started by man....like primitive farmers attempting to clear land, but then there are the national parks which also have hundreds of thousands of acres/hectares burnt each winter....I'm not sure whether they are started by natural causes or by us out of control Apes which are quickly destroying the planet.

Also these fires can be kind of like the Phoenix for the bush, as is the case in Australia where bush fires are a integral part of forest regeneration.
Either way I am not much of a raging environmentalist (egomentalists as Jeremy Clarkson would say) it has just made for some interesting flying experiences over the years.

This year hasn't been as bad as other years...so far. There has been a few days where the visibility has been down to a few miles.

On occasions these fires can be so great that I have been basically flying in IMC (Instrument meteorological conditions). Botswana seemed to be worse than here in Tanzania.

Once I was flying from the Okavango Delta to Kasane and it seemed like the entire Chobe national park was ablaze. Before I knew it there was so much smoke in the already incredibly hazy atmosphere I no longer had sight of the ground and so I was now flying completely off instruments. When this happened aircraft position reports became a lot more frequent as I was definitely not the only bug smasher (light aircraft) up in the smoke.

Some days it could get so bad that it wasn't until on short final to land that air strpis/runways became clearly visible. One memorable day according to my logbook it was August 10th 2006 I flew a Cessna 210 from Maun, Botswana to Windhoek Eros, Namibia return. Descending back into Maun I was flying visual flight rules but the visibility was so bad from the smoke and dust that I intercepted using my GPS the heading for runway 08 and positioned for a long final. I called the tower to inform them I was on a 5 mile final....I didn't have the runway in sight.....2 mile still no runway.....at 0.5 of a mile I saw the threshold. Flying in such limited visibility into land is not half as tense as shooting a ILS(fancy term for a precision instrument approach) to minimums during the angry tropical wet seasons here.That is how bad the visibility can get in Africa during the Winter.

The bush fires do have their moments of beauty. Late one day after flying back from a scenic flight over the Okavango Delta the sun was setting. In the twilight there was this brilliant red flame front (a big line of flames) about 3-5 miles long it snaked its way through the bush. I kick myself for not taking a photograph that evening when I look back on it.

Anyway this picture of a leading edge is on the Cessna Caravan that had the run in with a stork a few weeks back. With the wing patched up she flies as good as new...believe me I flew this machine for 4.0 hours on Wednesday.

Also check out:

www.africanbushpilot.com