HUGE FIRE RAGES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 280, 26 November 1938, Page 9

HUGE FIRE RAGES.

WHILE U.S. FREEZES. 5,000,000 Dollars' Damage to Film Colony. STORM CAUSES MANY DEATHS. United Press Association.—Copyright. (Received 10.30 a.m.) LOS AXGELES, Xovember 25. Fire fighters from the United iStates Army have surrounded a 200I mile mountain area in an effort to check a series of raging fires vhich already have destroyed hundreds of homes and threaten many palatial estates owned by film aetors and actresses. The damage to property at present is more than 5.000,000 dollars, and the damage to valuable watersheds is incalulable. One group of fire fighters is making a stand at the Santa Monica Mountains to the famous Belair estates on the fringe of Beverly Hills, where live Shirley Temple. Lionel Barrymore, •Jeanette Mac Donald, James Stewart, • O. Fields, Mary Astor and Joan ( rawford. Xone of these are censidered to be in immediate danger.

Shirley Temple's parents are away from their home, to which studio guards have been sent to move out furniture if the danger increases. The homes of the actress, Madeleine Carroll, the director. Frank Lloyd, and the producer, Sam Woods, were destroyed, but the flames were checked almost at the doors of the homes of Benny Rubin. Virginia Bruce, Miriam Hopkins and Richard Dix.

The flames continued towards the Belair estates, but the pace greatly diminished, causing fire fighters to believe that it was under control.

In the meanwhile freezing temperatures, snow, sleet and storms, of nearlv blizzard proportions, swept over most of the remainder of the nation, marring Thanksgiving celebrations and tying tip transportation facilities, including aerial.

At least a score were killed and many were injured in motor accidents. The temperature reached 21 degrees, the lowest for Thanksgiving Dav since 1898.

At Xew York, where a high wind piled up drifts in the streets, an unusual display of lightning showed up weirdly against thickly falling snow.