Fiery Fun

Kids will always find a way to be naughty, it just comes with the package.

I was about eleven years old and was very tight friends with the neighbour's son, Marcel, who was a year older than I was. We were always up to mischief when we were together, which was mostly on weekends.

This particular day was in the winter. The grass was dry, the trees had shed their leaves and a light breeze blew over the veld. Marcel and I were cold and we imagined that a small campfire would put some warmth into our cold bones.

Some of the dead trees had been cleared and thrown onto a heap, so there was enough dry wood for the fire. We found a piece of paper and some matches and we were set for the day.

Next to the heap of wood was a clearing where we planned to make our small fire. It was far away enough from anything that could catch fire and start to burn. Yes, we were careful, because growing up in an area where there was an abundance of dry grass in winter, taught us to be carefull. We lit the fire, fried some pieces of chicken that we got from the colonel's butler and talked about what we were going to do for the rest of that Saturday.

We had a few things in mind and soon we were bored with the fire and all charged up for adventure. Marcel stamped out the flames and coals and we left. We didn't realize that Mary-Anne, his little sister of five, had been watching us from the other side of the woodpile. Had we known, we would have done a better job of stamping out the burning wood, but we left and Mary-Anne stepped in. Later we tried to reconstruct how things happened that day, we realized that she had dragged a small, dry tree to the still hot embers and blew on the coals to catch fire.

Oblivious of what was happening at the woodpile, we went to the river to build a raft. It was while we were busy there that we saw the smoke in the direction of the gum-tree wood. We abandoned our raft and ran back to the house to find out what was going on. The wind had picked up and by the time we reached the woodpile, it already had turned into an inferno.

Workers and farmers came in bakkies (small trucks), cars and on foot, carrying wet hessian bags. Suddenly the peace and quiet of the Saturday morning was gone. People were shouting and yelling, and against the background of the raging fire we could see them with sacks whack whacking at the fire, ever so often standing back from the singing heat. My father also arrived with his two farm-workers.

My heart was thumping in my chest. Was this what we and Marcel had caused? It was dreadful! How could it have happened? The flames were charging towards the two houses, one being surrounded by huge trees. There were pines among them, and we knew that the colonel's house was going to get burnt to the ground because of its thatched roof should it catch fire.

The smoke was thick and suffocating. Whole trees burned like torches, and nothing in the area was safe from the flames. So every living animal was taken down to the river for safety where the younger children of the workers had to keep them together.

Marcel and me were too small to fight such a raging fire, but we each picked up a wet sack and started to help extinguish the fire anyway. I could feel the intense heat against my skin and I really panicked. Fire isn't a polite thing, it wants to burn you. A few feet away I could see Marcel frantically trying to distinguish the flames, but it proved to be too much for him as well.

Then the wind changed direction and the next moment the flames were all around us. I heard myself scream from shock and fear.

Someone dragged me out of the flames and poured some water over my clothes.

"Go to the house!" Marcel's father yelled. "I'll deal with you two later!"

We dropped the sacks and slinked off to the house where Mary-Anne sat watching the fire with widened eyes. We joined her not knowing what the little pest had done.

Outside the fire jumped the road and was getting uncomfortably close to Uncle Huup's house. We could smell the acrid air, and the smoke burnt our lungs. The fire was getting much too close for comfort.

Aunt Ruth came into the room where we were.

"Go to the back of the house ... stay in the kitchen and don't go outside."

"Why don't we leave, Mother?" Marcel asked.

"We can't ... the roads are blocked by the fire. Now go to the kitchen!" She didn't wait to see what we do, but left quickly.

We ran to the kitchen where we stood by the window watching the fire outside. It was quite hot even at this distance. They had a huge back yard where there was nothing that could burn so it was safe there for the moment.

Suddenly there was shouting outside, and we saw people running past to the colonel's house. It was a very old building with a thatched roof ... and they had many valuable antiques inside although that wasn't something that had any meaning for me at that time.

We watched as the fire scorched its path down to the colonel's house, emitting smoke and ash and heat, and we remembered how hot it was.

After another very long hour the wind dropped without warning as though it was tired of cheering the fire on. The suffocating smoke still hung in the air, the ash still drifted down, but the roaring sound of the flames was somewhat subdued.

It was more than two hours later when uncle Huup returned and said: "We saved your father's house, Ruth. It was just the barn and two of the outbuildings that burnt down."

So it was over at last. Marcel and me sat on the doorstep of the kitchen, and didn't say much. One of the neighbours came to uncle Huup.

"Someone had made a fire by the woodpile and dragged a small tree into the flames. That is what started the fire."

We were on our feet, not thinking clearly.

"We didn't do that!" we exclaimed, admitting that we had made a fire close to dry wood.

Marcel's father turned to us.

"So you made a fire while the wind was blowing?"

"A small one, Father," Marcel said apologisingly. "We extinguished it before we left."

"So how did it start again?" He obviously didn't believe us.

And then we turned to Mary-Anne who looked as guilty as could be but kept quiet. To this day we both maintain that we had nothing to do with that raging fire, but still no one believes us. I don't know where Marcel is today and if he ever thinks of what happened then, but maybe he will read this and laugh about it, happy that we escaped back then with just a stern reprimand.