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17 April 2026
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Featured FRI Magazine article: Firebreaks: construction and management in a forestry environment by Steve Reynolds
Sappi’s Stimela crew constructing a fireline
This week’s featured Fire and Rescue International magazine article is: Firebreaks: construction and management in a forestry environment written by Steve Reynolds, forestry manager: fire management, Sappi Forests (FRI Vol 3 no 12). We will be sharing more technical/research/tactical articles from Fire and Rescue International magazine on a weekly basis with our readers to assist in technology transfer. This will hopefully create an increased awareness, providing you with hands-on advice and guidance. All our magazines are available free of charge in PDF format on our website and online at ISSUU. We also provide all technical articles as a free download in our article archive on our website.
Firebreaks: construction and management in a forestry environment
By Steve Reynolds, forestry manager: fire management, Sappi Forests
As with all landowners in the country, forestry companies are guided in their fire preparations by applicable laws and regulations, particularly the Veld and Forest Fire Act No 101 of 1998. Chapter 4 section 12 (1) of the act states that “every owner on whose land a veldfire may start or burn or from whose land it may spread must maintain a firebreak on his side of the boundary between his or her land and any adjoining land.” Section 13 of the act goes on to stipulate that such firebreaks must be made with due regard to weather, climate, terrain and vegetation of the area. In addition, they must be
wide and long enough to have reasonable chance of preventing a veldfire from spreading to or from neighbouring land, must not cause soil erosion and must be reasonably free of inflammable material capable of carrying a veldfire across it.
In order to ensure that a firebreak is ‘wide enough and long enough to have reasonable chance of preventing a veldfire from spreading’, forestry companies have developed their own recommended firebreak widths according to crop or fuel load types as per the example in the table below.
Firebreaks: construction and management in a forestry environment
By Steve Reynolds, forestry manager: fire management, Sappi Forests
As with all landowners in the country, forestry companies are guided in their fire preparations by applicable laws and regulations, particularly the Veld and Forest Fire Act No 101 of 1998. Chapter 4 section 12 (1) of the act states that “every owner on whose land a veldfire may start or burn or from whose land it may spread must maintain a firebreak on his side of the boundary between his or her land and any adjoining land.” Section 13 of the act goes on to stipulate that such firebreaks must be made with due regard to weather, climate, terrain and vegetation of the area. In addition, they must be
wide and long enough to have reasonable chance of preventing a veldfire from spreading to or from neighbouring land, must not cause soil erosion and must be reasonably free of inflammable material capable of carrying a veldfire across it.
In order to ensure that a firebreak is ‘wide enough and long enough to have reasonable chance of preventing a veldfire from spreading’, forestry companies have developed their own recommended firebreak widths according to crop or fuel load types as per the example in the table below.
Recommended additional width on high risk boundary breaks
Firebreaks can be prepared in a number of ways such as grading, ploughing, discing, hoeing, raking burning or a combination of these and normally have a ‘fuel free’ width of no less than nine meters on either side of a boundary. The ‘optional additional width’ should be managed in such a way that it will ensure a low intensity fire whenever a fire should get into this section of the external firebreak. This section of the break should not necessarily be without any trees but should be managed in such a way to comply with the ‘low intensity fire’ requirement. This could be achieved by regular chemical weeding, raking, mechanical discing, mowing or mulching, by species selection (wattle trees are generally good for this purpose) or by under canopy burning.
As well as external firebreaks that exist between plantations, use is also made of buffer zones within the plantations. These buffer zones are areas with low fuel loads and low fire intensity that are strategically placed and which effectively split the plantation into smaller management units. These zones can be generated using internal firebreaks, normally burnt or mowed annually or can follow power lines – these are normally burnt or mowed annually; conservation areas (burnt for environmental reasons but often form part of buffer zones) or public roads or railway lines (verges burnt/mowed annually often form part of buffer zones).
As well as external firebreaks that exist between plantations, use is also made of buffer zones within the plantations. These buffer zones are areas with low fuel loads and low fire intensity that are strategically placed and which effectively split the plantation into smaller management units. These zones can be generated using internal firebreaks, normally burnt or mowed annually or can follow power lines – these are normally burnt or mowed annually; conservation areas (burnt for environmental reasons but often form part of buffer zones) or public roads or railway lines (verges burnt/mowed annually often form part of buffer zones).