PREVENTION OF RURAL FIRES

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23589, 17 March 1942, Page 6

PREVENTION OF RURAL FIRES

* FIRST SEASON’S TEST Though not put to a major test, the machinery of the Canterbury rural fire prevention scheme is considered to have proved its efficiency in its first season, which is now almost finished, with the passing of the most dangerous period for country grass fires. The scheme was not put to a severe test only because of the absence of serious fires in a summer lacking any long dry spells. In the whole season (since the plan wr ready for operation about Christ ;> only five fires were reported to . ■ secretary of the prevention committee 'Mr P. R. Climie). He said yesterday, however, that he believed there had been a number of scrub fires which might have been started intentionally, and which did not call for the services of the prevention organisation. Reports on the five fires give significant details of causes. The first fire, on January 5. at Te Pirita, Selwyn County, was caused by a spark from a chimney. An orchard fence was slightly damaged, eight or nine men combating the fire. The second outbreak, at Bankside, on January 6, was reported as caused by a spark from a railway engine. Damage to crops was estimated at £BO to £9O, a total of about 30 men having been engaged in the suppression organisation. Heat from the exhaust of a tractor is said to have caused the third fire, on the Oxford road (Rangiora County), on February 13. In this, 100 bales of straw valued at £lO and machinery valued at £3O were burned. Twenty men fought the fire, .which was isolated by the ploughing of a strip. The fourth was a sawmill fire at Hororata, caused from burning slabs at the mill. 160 men fighting the outbreak, but no estimate of the damage being given. The fifth was at Wariri Valley, near Glenroy, on March 6, and was. according to the report, caused by a cigarette butt or mate!, thrown from a vehicle on the road. Twentv-five men combated the fire, the estimated damage to property being £SO. i In the first two cases notification of the fire and arrival of first members of (he suppression party were almost simultaneous. In the third these details are lacking, and in the fourth and fifth there were respective lags of 30 and 15 minutes in the arrival of fire fighters. The first two fires were put out in an hour, the third in 30 minutes, and the others in an hour and a half. Expressing his satisfaction that the organisation was efficient. Mr Climie 'aid that the small testing it had had this season would be beneficial as a "working out" for future years.