Cape Town: Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis joined the City teams and NPO partners in Dunoon Site-5 to distribute the essentials donated by Capetonians at various City fire station drop-off points. He conjoined by the Member of Mayoral Committee for Human Settlements – Councillor Carl Pophaim.
The staff of City of Cape Town have reached out to all those who are affected and registering 2,604 people and 632 structures that re impacted by the fire. The city has supplied these verified personal details to National Government for urgent release of reconstruction kits and further relief via the South African Social Services Agency (SASSA).
Reportedly, this follows a major Fire and Rescue Services effort put by the City of Cape Town to contain the blaze in windy conditions on Jan 09, 2026. It also involved two helicopters water-bombing and prevented the fire from spreading to hundreds more adjacent homes. No lives were lost despite this being a major fire incident.
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said that residents in Dunoon Site-5 are very grateful for the kindness shown by so many Capetonians who dropped off donations at various fire stations.
According to Lewis, it was a devastating fire for so many and once again Cape Town has shown great spirit and togetherness in response. They appreciate the work of the NPO partners, including Gift of the Givers, the brave firefighters, City staff who spent long hours working on-site and reaching out to all affected people and all Capetonians who have made a contribution.
Following the fire, the City teams have already cleared the site of debris and conducted repairs to basic services infrastructure. This includes teams from Informal Settlements Management, Urban Waste Management, Disaster Risk Management along with Fire and Rescue Services team.
The City of Cape Town has further set aside R21 million with contractors on hand, ready to do re-blocking for safer access routes between households and future fire mitigation. This work is dependent on community consent as there has been resistance to these efforts largely due to unhappiness with historical National Government delays pertaining to the development of an upgrading programme.
Councillor Carl Pophaim stated that he has been on site various times since the weekend. The City of Cape Town urges the National Department of Human Settlements to act with urgency in releasing emergency rebuilding kits to affected residents as quickly as possible. This is a role that they hope to take over again, so that this relief can be directly released by the City as it was the case a few years ago.
He said that they were the only metro city in South Africa to provide such a service to fire and flood, that affected the informal residents, and they could provide this material relief within days. This was negatively impacted by the centralisation of the emergency assistance to a national level, that will result in longer turnaround times for this assistance.
Notably, they have been talking to the national government non-stop so that the City of Cape Town can again be the service provider to help residents fast. They are expert in assisting and have a very thorough understanding of situations on the ground.