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By Elvis Dumba
Banket – An 80-year-old male was burnt to death beyond recognition as a result of a veld fire that blazed through the farming community of Banket over the weekend.
Sakatiza Mariza, aged 80, of Plumstead Farm who worked at the nearby St John’s Farm near Banket as a farm guard is reported to have been killed in a veld fire as he was walking to his home from his workplace where he was on night duty.
It is alleged Mariza was walking along a path going to his home at Plumstead Farm after he finished duty at St John’s Farm when he was engulfed by a veld fire which was spreading all over the place.
The fire spread towards the path as the now deceased was walking. He tried to run away to a safer place but the fire caught up with him and engulfed him burning him to death beyond recognition.
After the fire had dowsed, a 66-year-old man, Isiah Mutero of Plot 4 Plumstead Farm who was driving through St John’s Plumstead Farm Road saw a human-like figure lying lifeless and stopped to investigate and noticed it was a male’s body burnt beyond recognition.
He alerted people at the nearby Plumstead Farm compound. A crowd of people came to investigate and among them was 34-year-old Costa Mariza from the same farm compound who managed to identify the now deceased as his father through a partially burnt cellphone which was beside the corpse.
Isiah Mutero went and lodged a report at Banket Police Station, who together with Detectives from Chinhoyi CID, attended the scene and the deceased body was conveyed to Banket District Hospital for a post-mortem. Foul play was ruled out.
“I was driving when I saw a human-like body lying down and when I went nearer that’s when I saw it was a person burnt by fire which had just passed through the area. There was still smoke around. I ran to that compound (Plumstead Farm) and called out the people who also came to assist. I then went to report the matter to the police who came to the scene swiftly,” Mutero said.
Residents in the area have blamed young people who are in the habit of starting fires as they clear some fields for mice hunting. The absence of fire guards was also blamed for the unfortunate incident.
“Most of these uncontrolled fires are being caused by kids who are going around hunting for mice. It’s unfortunate that they start fires they cannot control. A majority of plot-holders here do not take the issue of fire-guards seriously,” Tatenda Zirima, one of the landowners at Plumstead Farm said.
The country is currently in a high fire incidence season which usually runs from July to November.
According to recent statistics, wildfires constitute 10% of the world’s emissions and nearly half of this is related to Southern Africa. In Southern Africa alone, approximately 170 million hectares of forests and grasslands are burnt each year. Zimbabwe is not spared from the challenge, burning an average of 1.5 million hectares and in the process producing over 30 million tonnes of carbon emissions which is about 7% of the country’s emissions per year.