The young men were distraught. They thought they had proven their mettle by staying on campus to ensure that the fire raging in the forest behind UCT doesn’t reach campus. Rushing to strategically placed water tanks on the edge of the forest, with the hopes of quelling the flames next to the campus. Yet, the heat from the blaze prevented them from ever reaching the tanks.
‘Look, I think the winds are pushing the fire back.’ exclaimed an unknown CPS guard. His words weren’t cold when the wind changed direction. Now the winds were blowing smouldering leaves, chunks of flaming coal the size of tennis balls, and a dense smoke towards campus and towards them. Around three or four CPS guards ran towards a nearby staircase to seek refuge from the fiery debris and smoke. Only to see that a trash storage area outside one of the faculties had caught fire the moment they got to safety. The fire had reached campus.
Without hesitation, the guards rushed into the nearby buildings to find fire extinguishers. With only one being found, the first guard rushed towards the burning trash bins. With the first small fire being extinguished, two fires sprung up as a result of the constant rain of fiery debris. Another guard appeared out of a nearby building with a small fire extinguisher. This time, it’s no use on the fires, which were quickly multiplying.
Shortly after, the entirety of the upper portion of UCT’s upper campus was engulfed in a dense cloud of smoke, ash and the overwhelming sound of a fire crackling. Everything further than five meters was reduced to a silhouette amidst an orange hue. Yet, the CPS guards never faltered. They continued the scramble for fire extinguishers and rushed head first into the unknown of the orange hue. Only to later reemerge coughing and covered in sweat.
The upper part of the campus now became too hostile to continue. Yet another problem arose: There was no way of making it down to the middle part of the upper campus, due to ongoing renovation works blocking majority of the exit points. One CPS guard stepped up to the challenge and busted down some of the fencing to clear a way out through a small staircase which was still being built. Now on the middle section of the upper campus, the inferno started to barrel down on the plant covered buildings. More CPS guards emerged in blue UCT branded Jeeps from the dense smoke. A desperate attempt to contain the fire until firefighters arrived on the scene.
The futile fight continued. More and more trees caught fire as the minutes passed. The only fire extinguishers left in the immediate area were locked inside the buildings. Thus the CPS guards had to resort to breaking through one of the doors to continue the scramble to amass fire extinguishers. By the time fire fighters arrived on scene, the campus was covered in a thick cloud of smoke, burning trees, buildings and piles of empty fire extinguishers.
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