During the height of the 2-month drought there was fire everywhere, although mercifully not nearly as bad as the drought of 1997-8.

On 20th March 2010 around 10.20pm, I was driving from Kota Kinabalu towards Kiulu and as I approached Jambatan Tamparuli I could see something in the distance: St Veronica’s Hill / Bukit Perahu / Bukit Ruhiang, that spectacular, almost perfectly conical hill synonymous with Tamparuli was on fire!

So braving several menacingly barking dogs I jumped onto the hanging bridge and took several photos of the hill which was about a kilometer or so away, its silhouette clearly defined by the flames:

I thought: that’s it, by tomorrow the whole thing’s going to be a big black mess, because how on earth are we going to put out a fire that far up?

The next day, as I drove down from the direction of Kiulu, I was surprised to see that the hill suffered a mere graze:

Closeup:

Good old Bukit Perahu, looks like Tamparulians’ spa filters are going to last a little bit longer…

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