A fire on Saturday night in Peck's Valley above Muizenberg, Cape Town, burnt about 60-100 hectares of mountainside, heralding the beginning of the fire season in the Western Cape, which officials warn will be the most extreme since 2015.

The 2023-24 fire season in the Western Cape is expected to be a busy one as a result of human negligence and increased temperatures as well as hot, dry and windy summer conditions that will result in bigger fires that are more intense, more frequent, and occur in areas that do not normally burn.

During the launch of the Western Cape's fire readiness programme in Stellenbosch on Monday, the national government, the Western Cape government and its municipalities said they were prepared for the province's fire season, which began on Saturday with a fire in Peck's Valley above Muizenberg.

Justin Buchman, the fire manager at Table Mountain National Park (TMNP), said the cause of the fire was still undetermined, but: "Our suspicions are fairly strong that it was a church group up the mountain. They had admitted that they had made a fire. And there was nobody else in the given area."

Anton Bredell, the Western Cape MEC for local government, environmental affairs and development planning, said about 97% of fires in the region were caused by human influence, either intentionally or through negligence.

With 2023 shaping up to be the hottest year recorded, Trevor Abrahams, the managing director of...