FIRE FIGHTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 259, 2 November 1933, Page 16

FIRE FIGHTERS.

ARMY'S NEW TASK.

ACRES OF HEATH ABLAZE.

MILITARY WORK SUSPENDED,

Many hundreds of soldiers from Aldershot, Bordon, and Longmoor camps were sent out for several successive days in September to light heath fires, which continued to devastate vast areas of Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire. All military training was suspended at these camps, and every man available was employed fightnig tho flames or patrolling danger zones. The Army constituted itself a vast fire-hrigade. The firo menace was treated like a war, and at tho headquarters of some camps beflagged maps were used to show tho exact positions of fires and troops, so that reinforcements could be hurried to the right points when fresh fires broke out or the wind fanned more flames from the smouldering cinders of old ones. Typical of the position at other camps was that at Longmoor, near Liss, where tho normal work and training of COO Royal Engineers was entirely suspended. There were no manoeuvres, no games or sports, rio parades —not even church parades.

The men, in uniform and wearing gas masks when necessary, spent about eight hours a day, sometimes much longer, firefighting or patrolling. When they returned to camp for sleep and food, others took their places, and the work continued night and day without a break. Captain. G. A. Palmer, the camp adjutant at Longmoor, said that all leave had been stopped. "We began fighting fires at mid-day on Saturday," he said, "and wa have been doing it ever since. We' shall go on doing it until the rain comes. "It is impossible to know where the flames will break out next. Many times we have thought a fire was out, and then suddenly it burst out again." Edgar Wallace's Grave Damaged. Fire raged over a large area of the New Forest. Men of the Royal Artillery stationed at Christcliurch were rushed by motor lorry to Bratley, on the RingwoodCadnam Road to fight a renewed outbreak of the firo from which they had only returned at six o'clock in the morning. The fire bumcd fiercely over an expanso of four miles, and several times crossed the main road. Traffic had to be diverted, and motorists had to travel through tho village of Burley, making a detour of eight miltes for safety. Ono motorist had to abandon his car and run for his IBfe when it became surrounded by flames near Picket Post. Tho car was destroyed. Other motorists escaped by reversing rapidly, for there was no time to turn, round. Tho tops of graves, including that of Mr. Edgar Wallace, -were damaged by a fire at Little Marlowe The devastating fire' at Rogate Common, near Petersfleld, which had been alternately blazing and smouldering for three days, broke out again on the fourth. Reinforcements from Aldershot and lorry loads of Roya3 Engineers from Longmoor were sent for and assisted the troops, who had been at work throughout the week-end. A change in the wind wwept the flames to within a few yards of. Durford Wood.