Who cuts the breaks
Brandwag started in a shed behind the sawmill in Sabie in 2009, kitting out the farm and plantation crews who cut and burn the breaks every autumn. Most of us have stood on a line ourselves. That is the only reason we know which handle snaps in the second season and which one does not. A callout is not what the television shows you. It is four people on a two-track at eleven at night, a bakkie with a bladder in the back, and forty minutes of beating and wetting the same hundred metres of edge until it stops breathing. What decides how that goes is whether the beaters were on the vehicle and the knapsacks were full before anybody left the yard. Four beaters and two charged knapsacks per vehicle is the minimum we will sign a crew off on. A 600 litre bakkie sakkie runs eleven minutes flat out, so the refill point gets planned first. Breaks are cut at 3 m through grazing and 6 m where the gums come up to the fence. Fire season on this escarpment is 1 May to 31 October, and the wind turns in August.
