{"id":43579,"date":"2026-01-31T06:51:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T04:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/accidents\/rapid-response-prevails-as-deliberate-fire-decreases-n3-visibility\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T06:51:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T04:51:15","slug":"rapid-response-prevails-as-deliberate-fire-decreases-n3-visibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/accidents\/rapid-response-prevails-as-deliberate-fire-decreases-n3-visibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Rapid Response Prevails as Deliberate Fire Decreases N3 Visibility"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Early this morning, a potentially catastrophic multi-vehicle pileup was averted on the N3 freeway due to the rapid intervention of the KwaZulu Private Ambulance Service&rsquo;s Scene Safety and Support unit.<\/p>\n<p>At approximately 08:30, emergency dispatchers received reports of a thick, smoke across both carriage-ways between the New England Road and Market Road off-ramps. Upon arrival, it was discovered that a vagrant had systematically collected discarded paper and heavy rubber tyres from nearby roadwork construction sites, piling them in the center median before setting them alight.<\/p>\n<p>The resulting fire produced dense, acrid smoke, reducing visibility for commuters traveling at high speeds. The positioning of the fire between the Northbound and Southbound lanes created a significant hazard, as motorists were forced to navigate through a &quot;smoke screen&quot; with no immediate warning.<\/p>\n<p>Leveraging the specialized capabilities of the Scene Safety and Support unit, which is equipped&#8230;<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arrivealive.co.za\/news.aspx?s=1&#038;i=76293&#038;page=rapid-response-prevails-as-deliberate-fire-decreases-n3-visibility\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more on Arrive Alive <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Early this morning, a potentially catastrophic multi-vehicle pileup was averted on the N3 freeway due to the rapid intervention of the KwaZulu Private Ambulance Service&rsquo;s Scene Safety and Support unit. At approximately 08:30, emergency dispatchers received reports of a thick, smoke across both carriage-ways between the New England Road and Market Road off-ramps. Upon arrival, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43580,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.arrivealive.co.za\/\/ckfinder\/userfiles\/images\/WhatsApp%20Image%202026-01-30%20at%2013_27_47.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2149],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-accidents"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.arrivealive.co.za\/\/ckfinder\/userfiles\/images\/WhatsApp%20Image%202026-01-30%20at%2013_27_47.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}