Many Bush Fires Raging In Australia

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29105, 18 January 1960, Page 9

Many Bush Fires Raging In Australia

(Rec. 9.30 p.m.) MELBOURNE, January 17. , Troops had to be called to go to the assistance of almost exhausted men before a bush fire was brought under control in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia yesterday.

Today bush fires were being (ought in three States in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit almost general throughout Australia —with the flames being fanned by searing winds with gusts up to 40 miles an hour. The fires were being fought In South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania, and fire danger warnings were out in other States. Troops joined more than 200 weary fire-fighters yesterday in a desperate attempt to check a raging bush fire out of in the Flinders Range 20 miles from Port Pirie, 134 miles from Adelaide.

“We just can’t go on, we need relief urgently,” was the dramatic call for aid issued by the firefighters. They had been fighting the blaze in 12-hour shifts for the last eight days. The Flinders Range fire was one of three burning on wide fronts In various parts of South Australia. Others are at Tintinara, in the South-east, and at Parndana, on Kangaroo Island. One firefighter described the position at Tintinara as “sitting on a powder keg.” ' More than 200 rural fire brigade men fought a fire at the foot of the Grampian Mountains, 150 miles west of Melbourne, which swept down the rugged mountains on a 15-mile front!

The fire in the Grampians is burning on a perimeter of 100 miles and more than 5000 acres of timber country has been destroyed. Another fire was being fought on the Victorian-South Australian border, 248 miles west of Melbourne.

The Tasmanian fire was being fought in the Derwent valley. A pall of smoke from bush fires almost covered Bass Strait, which separates Tasmania from Victoria.

In Victoria, fires were also raging out of control in the northeast section of the State today. The chairman of the Victorian Country Fire Authority, Mr C. G. Daw, warned that unless the fires were halted “the whole of Victoria could be set ablaze.” In New South Wales, police said if “someone dropped a match” fire would rage unchecked for hundreds of miles. Hundreds of families have fled their homes in Victoria and South Australia. Heat wave conditions continued in Victoria. In Melbourne today the temperature was 102 degrees shortly after noon. Late today Victoria was engulfed in heavy rain, which has eased the Grampian Mountains fire situation. The temperature, however, is still high and the rain has not provided much relief from the heat wave.