Archive for February 3rd, 2001
Day 31
It was incredibly hot today, one of those days that just makes activities outdoors impossible. So, Tyse had a video of an innovative project at the local Air Force base. To keep wildlife off the runway, which can damage planes landing or taking off, two caracals (or desert lynx) were released into the area. They have been very successful in chasing away any animals which might wander onto the runway. It was amazing to see how well these caracals, which have been bred in captivity, adapted to the wild, allowing instinct to take over. A caracal can do amazing gravity-defying leaps into the air to swipe low-flying birds out of the air, its absolutely amazing.
I spent the evening at Moria camp (the staff camp). It was another quiet night, some of the staff were at work doing night-drives for tourists, while we were lounging around watching TV and playing pool.
When all of a sudden, there was a huge BOOOOOOM! as a huge lightning bolt struck right outside the camp! Mark, who was on the phone at the time, and Francoise, who was using a tap, both got nasty electric shocks.
For a few seconds everyone was quiet and a bit stunned, until we heard a shout from outside - FIRE! An area of dry grassland right outside, which had been struck by the lightning, was on fire!
Panic reigned the next 20 minutes. All the staff raced straight to one of the garages used to store the big tourist trucks, and I was beckoned to follow. Not entirely certain what everyone was doing, I went to the garage, where I found everyone grabbing what were basically big whips, with large, flat ends. Now even more confused, I asked what we were doing.
It turned out these whips were an ingenious fire-fighting tool. Once we had all raced out to the fire, and surrounded the fire, we all started whipping the fire! Because the ends of the whips were large, flat surfaces, they had the effect of blowing the fire out. But it would only work if we were all working in synchrony, otherwise it made the fire worse. So one of the rangers (I can’t remember who) shouted out a 1-2-3 count, and we brought the whips down on 3.
It was incredibly effective, we had the fire beaten after 10 smokey, lung-busting minutes.