IN THE PUBLIC MIND

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 38, 15 February 1943, Page 2

IN THE PUBLIC MIND

- — ..mi # — ... ■ ■ — CORRESPONDENTS' .VIEWS*

■—— ■-"■' m BUSH FIRES

To the Editor. Your leading article Bush Fires No Novelty has inspired this letter. My wife belongs to the Puhipuhi district in the North, and I know through frequent visits to that area, and from stories told to me how that district has been ravaged by bush fires for many years, in fact since some of the grandest kauri this country ever had was milled out of there. I know the other districts where the kauri is still standing that were menaced, and have often wondered why our successive Governments, having declared certain areas forest reserves, then let fern and bracken grow all about them so that the first imbecile who comes along with a match and wants a little cheap excitement starts a forest fire which does thousands of pounds worth of damage, and generally destroys several homes as well. Even where the Government has great pine forest plantations, the ever present menace of fire, with apparently every facility for combating it, has just swept a considerable area of ' young pine forest plantations in the Tairua-Mercury Bay a"rea, and swept a whole valley clear of all vegetation. Danger has apparently been caused in the course of clearing areas for fire breaks, inflammable material lyirig on the roadside for a considerable area. A lot of public money has goit? up in smoke there quite recently. R. J. CHRISTIE.