HEAVY LOSS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 16, 20 January 1939, Page 3

HEAVY LOSS.

TREES DESTROYED. BUSH FIRE DAMAGE. HOMESTEAD THREATENED. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) GTS BORN K, this day. A plantation of IS.OOO trees planted 11 vears ago on Mr. I . \Y. G. J ombleson's property was destroyed by a fire which, driven by a fierce north-westerly gale, swept through a wide area at Tahacnui. The trees were worth thousands of pounds, as tlicy were within a few years of the unliable stage. But for the prompt removal of his stud stock. .Mr. Tonibleson might have lost even more heavily. The blaze is believed to have been started by a spark from a railway engine. When it grew settlers in the neighbourhood set to work to control its spread. Travelling before the gale, however, it swept over hastily-devised firebreaks and efforts to check it by burning back tires were equally unsuccessful. When the" fire spread to a shelter belt 011 Mr. Tonibleson s property it was feared that the homestead itself might be destroyed, but a fortunate change of wijul removed that danger, and the lire burned its way across the sandhills until the growth became too sparse to feed it. Fire in partly-cleared country in the Koranga area caused the abandonment of Mr. W. Kilmers' homestead and also of a roadman's cottage occupied by Mr. ('. Wattam. A roadman's* cottage on the Moanui road, occupied by Mr. McLean, was destroyed by a fire which swept that area. The fire started in the Moanui area and, fanned bv a gale, reached serious proportions yesterday. There is 110 standing bush in the district, but much of the country contains logs, stumps and dry growth, and fire covers a wide area. Typical of the hazards which carelessness in the disposal of matches and cigarette ends causes, an incident in the neighbourhood of Te Reinga Falls has cost the district the loss of 18 acres of line bush re.-erve. Two Maori women were engaged in netting young eels from a stream below the falls and one, lighting a cigarette, tossed the burning match into a patch of blackberry. The immediate result was a flare up in the blackberry and the fire spread rapidly before a strong wind. Before the fire burned itself out a large area of bush had been ruined. But for a change of wind the whole of the falls reserve would have been destroved.