FIRE AMONG PINE TREES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 5, 7 January 1931, Page 3

FIRE AMONG PINE TREES.

HOSPITAL ENDANGERED.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, Tuesday. A serious fire broke out this afternoon in the lupins on the sandhills near Bottle Lake and spread to the Hospital Board's pine plantations. Fanned by a heavy north-west wind the fire threatened to spread over a wide front in the plantations. The lupins, gorse and other inflammable growth are all now very dry and the flames burned fiercely. The infectious diseases hospital at Bottle Lake was early in danger, but although branches of the fire SgEiSTr" almost to the walls of the buildings the fire passed without doing any damage. The hospital staff quickly removed the 23 patients to a place of safety and preparations were made for salvaging everything movable. There are about 150 acres in. the hospital board's pine plantation, the trees ranging in age from sixteen to two years old. All this area was burned out. The fire burned fiercely until ten o'clock when its progress was arrested by a belt of green alders growing wild among the lupins and gorse. The damage done to treee and fencing is estimated at between and £10,000.