About Us

Wildfires, locally referred to as veldfires often become emergencies that threaten life and assets of the community at large when they spread, or threaten to spread, beyond the boundaries of any one property. It requires collective co-operation to prevent and control wildfires under the various conditions that they occur in and to use controlled burning for environmental and other purposes. Effective management of wildfires requires organisational structure, strategy, plans, information, networks, skills, and equipment that cannot adequately be provided by any one category of landowner alone.

You, Veldfires and the Law

Many of the legal duties of landowners are found in the NVFFA (National Veld and Forest Fire Act) and they include things like needing to have firebreaks, equipment to fight wildfires, having trained personnel available to fight wildfires, and not being allowed to start wildfires (which is kind of a no-brainer).Aside from those regulations (which are just a few) you also have to deal with something called a “presumption of negligence”.In simple terms, the presumption of negligence (in relation to wildfires) says that if someone claims damages from you for a wildfire that started on your land and badly affected them, you get assumed negligent (meaning careless or neglectful).It is then up to you to prove otherwise unless you are part of an FPA. Then they have to prove that you are guilty.The key takeaway here is: private land users aren't forced to be part of an FPA, but it seriously helps in terms of all the “legal stuff” and can even save you from some extremely uncomfortable situations.

FDI Impact Description Landscape

This is the Fire Danger Index (FDI) for this week.
Here's how it works: Blue and green are generally safe days and, though care should always be taken around fire, things are far less likely to get out of hand. Blue or green days are often good days for controlled burns.
Take extra care around fires on yellow days, and you should not do any controlled burns when the rating is above 55. Signs of fire should be reported immediately.
Orange and red days are extremely dangerous. Every person should take extreme care with and around fire/fire causing things. Any signs of smoke or fire should be reported immediately.
This daily FDI is calculated by SAWS. We recommend checking on their website if you need the estimated FDI for a longer time span.

Security

Your application contains information that you want to keep confidential - We agree. Your private information is kept just that - private: we store your applications in our online database.

Convenience

There's no place more accessible than the internet, so now, on our website you can submit your membership application, apply for a burn permit, and even book a Working on Fire (WoF) team, all from the comfort of your own home.

Cloud Based

Membership applications used to be filled out by hand. It was messy, difficult, and required you to be in a certain place at a certain time. That's why we moved our system to the cloud. No more paperwork.

Member Portal

Moved? Sold / bought property? Changed your email? That used to mean you had more documents to fill out, but not anymore, just login to your account and change your details yourself! Now you can get back to doing what you do best, and leave the paperwork to us.

Welcome to IMFPA