FOREST FIRE IN TARARUAS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22308, 24 January 1938, Page 10

FOREST FIRE IN TARARUAS

LARGE AREA OF NATIVE BUSH DESTROYED FLAMES QUENCHED BY TIMELY FALL OF RAIN (rRRSS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAMj WELLINGTON, January 23. Originating on Friday night in the southern Tararua mountains, a forest fire was swept by Saturday's high north-westerly wind through some thousands of acres of native bush, before a fortunate change in the wind, which brought heavy rain with it, quenched the flames this morning.

A party of Tararua Tramping Club members, bound for the Tauherenikau Hut to do some work to prevent the Tauherenikau river from .scouring the ground from under the hut, diverted their attention to fighting the flames, which might have threatened the building. The 'onset of the rain was most fortunate, because it was the first for weeks. The bush was very dry. Dry moss, festooning the trees, carried the fire like a fuse, so that it ran through the forest until it came to an inflammable tree, when it would burst out at the top, and the sparks would be carried by the gale even further ahead.

The firefighters realised that they could not extinguish the flames, but hoped to divert them from the huts and from parts of the forest. The fire apparently began at a camp fire on the Marchant track, which leads up the Marchant ridgt, and is one of the main routes into the range. The ridge is practically the boundary of the Wellington Water Board's property and the State Forest Reserve, which embraces the valley of the Tauherenikau.

To-day it was reported that the Water Board had not lost a great deal of bush, thanks to the rain and the efforts of the Tararua Tramping Club.