Two more people have died in wildfires in the Free State this week, bringing the number of death so far to three, Working on Fire (WoF) said on Thursday.
The two people were motorists and they died of smoke inhalation in the same fire which claimed the life of a farmworker who died while helping farmers extinguish a fire near Vredefort on Tuesday, it said.
Hundreds of farm animals have also died in fires which have ravaged the Free State, North West, Limpopo and parts of Gauteng and Kwa-Zulu Natal, said WoF spokesman Evelyn John Holtzhausen.
There had been particularly bad fires this year because good rainfall last summer resulted in a lot of growth, which had become highly flammable in the dry, cold winter, he said.
High winds had created conditions conducive to the rapid spread of fires this week, he said.
However, the establishment of fire protection associations had improved the co-ordination of fire fighting efforts and prevented further damage.
In Limpopo, fires had destroyed about 50,000 hectares of farmland, said WoF.
It advised landowners to ensure they had adequate firebreaks in place.
The wildfire season is from May 1 to October 31 in summer rainfall areas.
Agriculture Deputy Minister Dr Pieter Mulder was shocked at the fire damage, particularly in the Free State and North West.
He expressed his sympathy for the personal losses of farmers and farm workers.
Mulder said that if the fires were started by arsonists, as was suggested in media reports earlier this week, the guilty parties had to be caught and punished.
He said the damage the fires had caused to rural communities' economies could not easily be calculated and would affect all of them as they were interdependent.
He said preventative measures at local level should be reviewed to limit the future impact of fire damage. - Sapa