BUSH FIRES IN AUSTRALIA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 14, 18 January 1892, Page 2

BUSH FIRES IN AUSTRALIA.

We are apt to indulge in a good deal of grumbling during a long-continued spell of dry weather such as we are suffering from a t present, but a moment's consideration f the effect drought is producing in the neighbouring colonies ought to modify our complaints. In the Auckland district, beyond rendering the pasturage somewhat scanty, and causing a scarcity of water in those suburbs that depend for their supplies chiefly upon tanks, we have suffered no general inconvenience. The heab has at* times been trying, but when we compare our registers with those that have been recorded in New South Wales during the last few weeks, we realise the insufferable temperature endured by our neighbours. Their records sbow readings ranging from 100 to 130 in the shade. It would be well if the disagreeables induced by the excessive heat were confined to personal inconvenience ; but a glance ab recenb Sydney papers reveals to us a long catalogue of bush fires, unprecedented in the destruction they have wrought.

Ib would appear thab fires have been raging simultaneously in nearly all the pastoral districts of thab colony. The conflagrations have been especially severe in the extensive Riverina plains. In seasons of drought, the pastoral districts of Australia havo always been liable to be swept by fire. The area over which the recent fires have exteuded is nob, porhaps, greaber bhan thab which was the scene of conflagration in the earlier days of the colony, but owing to tho more complete settlement of the country the losses are much heavier. Districts which twenty or thirty years ago consisted of a few large sheep runs, are now occupied by hundreds of selectors, each owning a farm of moderate size. It ia pitiable to read of tho common ruin in which numbers of industrious farmers are involved. In many instances, homesteads, houses, sheep, and crops have been destroyed by the devouring element. On the stations thousands of acros of grass, miles of fencing, and valuable machinery are now only represented by blackened country and charred heaps of ruins. In the intense, heat men have worked day and night to beat back the lire and save their homesteads; in some insfanco? they have been successful, but in others they have narrowly escaped with their lives.

The prevalence of bush fires will always handicap /the progress of the Australian settler. The awful rapidity with which the conflagration spreads is one of the most appalling features. A man who a lew hours before gazed with pride upon his prosperous homestead finds himself confronted by a heap of smoking ruins. The squatters have suffered severely, but many of the small proprietors have been reduced from comfort to a state of penury.

While we sympathise with our neighbour-?' calamities, we may congratulate ourselves that the conditions of climate are such that we are comparatively free from similar disasters. Our settlers have much to contend with, but a temperate climate and well-watered country save them from plagues of locusts andf requenb conflagration such as in the nature of things must always seriously handicap pastoral and agricultural pursuits in Australia.