A "rogue" Irishman with his own mountain and a Scottish lord with a love of pine trees are in the firing line as authorities crack down on overgrown properties in parched Cape Town.
Officials this week shared a hit list of properties overrun with alien vegetation that posed a fire hazard ahead of an expected busy fire season due to the drought.
Top of the list is Irish businessman Martin Kelly, who has refused to clear a forest of alien vegetation on his hilltop property - dubbed Matchbox Mountain.Also on the list is a wealthy Scottish lord, Irvine Laidlaw, who owns a Noordhoek estate adjoining Table Mountain National Park. Unlike Kelly, however, Laidlaw has spent a small fortune eradicating invasive pines to prevent a repeat of a 2015 inferno.
By contrast, Kelly has largely ignored his 78ha Erf 1, which towers above Glencairn and where alien vegetation stands over 3m high in places. The conditions mean the hill is considered an "inferno in waiting".
Erf 1 narrowly escaped a series of fires in recent years, including a fire earlier last month that cut a swathe through an adjoining valley above Simon's Town.
The Department of Environmental Affairs said this week the stand-off with Kelly was a worry.
"We've already had very unseasonal fires, and fire season really starts in December," said Guy Preston, deputy director-general for environmental programmes.
"We had to bring down our helicopters early after the unseasonal fire that started at Oudekraal [between Bakoven and Llandudno on the Cape Peninsula]...