This is most unfortunate news, and I hope the fires can be halted soon.
The smoke rising from the mountainside called to mind the regular fires that burn across the Cape mountains.
In this instance, the fire (if it is not too frequent) is a necessary part of the ecology, since it clears old growth and sets the seed for young plants to grow.
I refer here to the fynbos ecology. Fynbos should be burnt at intervals of between four and nine years, depending on the type of plants that predominate.
Sad to say, many tracts of fynbos are burnt too often, and the seed store is lost. Where alien vegetation, like Australian acacia species and pine trees, occur, these trees burn much more fiercely than fynbos, and the fynbos seeds are destroyed while space is made for new alien growth.
Peat does not occur in South Africa, but there is a coal mining area east of Pretoria (ironically named Witbank [white reef]) where underground fires have burnt for many years.
Regards,
Mike