BUSH FIRES.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20420, 15 December 1931, Page 11

BUSH FIRES.

«> HAVOC IN NEW SOUTH WALES. TWO STATIONS DESTROYED. SETTLERS MOBILISED TO FIGHT FLAMES. (UNITED TRBS3 ASSOCIATION—BT KLECTBIC TKLF.GEAPU—COPtAIOHT.) (Received December 14th, 7.35 p.m.) SYDNEY, December 14. Bush and grass firos in western New South Wales continue tlioir destructive course. Every man, woman, and child able to assist is engaged fighting thij flames along a front of 150 miles. Tho wind this forenoon veered from west to south, with the result that a wide stretch. of country extending to Brewarrina is in danger. Pinchinara and Curranylpa stations havo been gutted. Defying three hundred fire-fighters, a bush firo with a fifty-mile front is raging through pastoral properties and threatening Cobar, in western New South Wales. The fire is travelling at the rate of thirty miles a day. It has already destroyed thousands of acres of grass lands, and two stations, one of 150,000 acres and another of 200,000 acres, have been burnt out. RUFFIANS IN SYDNEY. OLD MAN BATTERED TO DEATH. (Received December 14th, 7.45 p.m.) SYDNEY, December 14. Two men bound and gagged Alexander Barry, aged 75 years, at liis home in Paddington and battered his head fatally. Ilis wife rushed to his aid and was brutally attacked, receiving injuries which are expected to prove fatal. Robbery is supposed tojliave been the assailants' object, as it is reported that Barry was fairly well-to-do and-kept a largo sum of money in the house, where he lived for many years, because he feared to deal with tho banks.