GREAT FOREST FIRES.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 256, 29 October 1929, Page 10

GREAT FOREST FIRES.

PACIFIC COAST SWEPT.

OREGON AND REDWOOD

AFLAME.

ORDEAL FOR FIRE FIGHTERS,

Forest fires have caused widespread destruction on the, Pacfiic Coast during the past few'months. Captain E. H. Phillips, master of the Golden West, which arrived at Auckland yesterday, said that the whole of the coast from Vancouver to San Francisco had been enveloped in smoke during September when his vessel was loading for New Zealand.

"In my nineteen years' experience of the Pacific Coast I have never known the mountain districts so parched as they were after the dry spell, which continued almost without interruption from June to September," said Captain Phillips. "At Portland there was no rain for those four months. The smoke lay like a fog on the Puget bounds and even winds did not clear away the haze." Villages Wiped Out. Villages had been wiped out in the forest areas and the ashes and cinders from , the fires were at times dropping in Portland, the principal city of Oregon. From the redwood forests of California to the pine forests of British Columbia fires raged for many weeks. Those attempting to combat the spread of the flames had a difficult task in the mountainous country. Some small villages only thirty or forty miles from Portland were in danger and the anxiety , was only removed hy burning a firebreak wide' enough to prevent the fire from advancing.

In the vicinity of Stevenson, Washington, the fire department and volunteers had a strenuous fight against the flames, which threatened the town with destruction. All night, the' firemen battled hard. 'Ilie fire jumped a railroad track and a creek on one side of the city in Beveral places, to be met with powerful streams of water directed by experienced firemen. So serious was the threat that when the flames reached the creek barrier many people abandoned tlioir property, and others moved their goods to places of safety. Giant cinders were tossed acroES 1 thq Columbia the

Oregon shore. For a time it appeared that not only was the town doomed, but the ilre would succeed in jumping the water boundary between the two States. Not until the live had raced to within a mile and a half of the city did the wind veer. Quickly the firefighters seized their opportunity and set backfires to save their homes.

In its raging advance on the town the fire destroyed a dozen or more homes along a ten mile front, caused heavy damage to lumber companies chased families before it. / A Terrible Day. Continuing, Captain Phillips said that throughout a day as dark as twilight the citizens of Stevenson, refugees from the back country, tired firefighters and mill workers moved restlessly up and down the . streets. Everyone wondered whether' the fires, which burned on three sides of the town, would come riding down the slopes of the mountains on switching winds and drive them back across the Bridge of the Gods into

Oregon. The principal difficulty in fighting the fires, Captain Phillips explained, was that it was impossible for the men to advance into the forests far enough to combat the fires before they got a real hold. All efforts were focussed upon protecting life and property, and this meant' that the services of all firefighters and equipment were required in the vicinity of the populated areas.