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MARAKELE NATIONAL PARK SAFE FOLLOWING A FIRE BREAK

South African National Parks (SANParks) said in a statement this morning that tourists planning to visit the Marakele National Park in Thabazimbi this week are free to book and make use of the park following a fire blaze in the mountainous area of the park.

According to the park spokesperson, Antionet van Wyk a preliminary area survey report done after the fire was contained indicated that 45% of the 67,000 hectares of land was destroyed. “We are thankful that no deaths or damage to property occurred during the fire as most of the animals and tourism infrastructure are in the plains of the area and not in the mountains.”

She said adequate measures were taken to protect the infrastructure in the area with the help from the Marakele Working on Fire and the South African National Parks Rangers based in the park … “Hence we would like to inform members of the public and visitors to the park that it is safe to book accommodation in Marakele National Park.”

The fire that started raging on Thursday last week in a farm adjacent to Marakele National Park was completely put down yesterday.“Bookings at the Park camps; (Tlopi tented and Bontle Camps) are still open and visitors can still make use of the facilities, concludes van Wyk.

For information on SANParks bookings visit www.sanparks.org or call central reservation on 012 428 9111 or e-mail reservations@sanparks.org

Ends…

Txs Cassius

My wife and I stayed at the Tlopi tented camp on sat night 9/10/2010 and could see the night sky which was painted red from the fires in the mountains.I took a drive along the "Lenong Drive" on the sunday to reach the Radio Towers at the top of the drive but I did not feel comfortable to reach the last +/- 400 meters because of all the smoke and did not want to be trapped so I had to return without getting right to the top and I was really dissappointed.I am very pleased to read that there is no loss of life but saddened to hear the loss of land.It is beautiful country and I really enjoyed my stay except for the monkeys opening our fridge and stealing our bread,please take note.(I was 10 meters from the fridge!!).It is a great get away from Johannesburg for the weekend(284km).Hope sanParks can contain the fire and best wishes to all involved.

We are going this comming weekend.