One of the big stories this week was the forest fires in South Africa’s Table Mountain National Park reaching the University of Cape Town. Nature's headline 'The damage is total', led to many people thinking the herbarium at UCT has been destroyed. This is not the case. There is damage to the Plant Conservation Unit, but part of the Botany building is unharmed. The Nature story concludes with UCT palaeoecologist Lindsey Gillson saying, “I’m just happy nobody was in the lab. We’ve lost our home, but we haven’t lost our community.”Unfortunately, this isn't the same elsewhere. At Botany One our thoughts are with colleagues in India, Brazil and everywhere else suffering from COVID. You won't be surprised that COVID covered many of the other stories shared on Twitter. I'm in a fortunate position where I can ignore the worst of the news when I need to. I appreciate that's not the case for everyone.I hope you stay safe, and that you'll be receiving another newsletter next week.Alun (webmaster@botany.one)