WHIRLWIND AND FIRE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 23, 28 January 1939, Page 13

WHIRLWIND AND FIRE.

SPECTACLE IN WAIKATO. SCRUB BLAZE CAUSES ALARM (From Our Correspondent.) HAMILTON, Friday. An awe-inspiring sight was witnes&ed this afternoon from the property of Mr. S. J. H. Powell, which adjoins the Ruakura State Farm. A scrub fire which started shortly after mid-day spread to an area of tea-tree, and by three o'clock the blaze had assumed large proportions. Then, caught in a whirlwind, smoke and flame were carried into the air for a height estimated at 500 ft, with a roar that caused cows and horses in the vicinity to career around the paddocks with fright. Mr. Powell described the sound of the whirlwind as similar to that of flames rushing up a chimney.

The spectacle lasted for more "than a minute, by which time the whirlwind exhausted itscK and the smoke was dispersed.

Several houses to the south appeared to be in danger, but the intervention of the railway line and lire breaks eliminated possibility of the flames reaching the .buildings.

Late in the afternoon the. lire had spread along a front of about two miles and an area of 100* acres was left charred and smouldering.

Dense pillars of smoke from grass and scrub fires could be seen from Hamilton rising in various parts of the Waikato to-day. A smoky haze has hung over Hamilton,. Cambridge, Morrinsville and other towns for several days, and the atmosphere to-day was particularly murky.