Cleared Firebreak To Save Himself

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30560, 1 October 1964, Page 8

Cleared Firebreak To Save Himself

(New Zealand Press Association)

WHANGAREI, September 30. A bulldozer driver used his machine to clear a fire break round himself and then crouched alongside it while flames roared all round him near Dargaville yesterday.

The driver, Mr N. Stankovich, was trying to arrest the progress of a fire which spread over more than 100 acres of scrub near the Mahuta Gap road, when a sudden . wind change turned the flames back on him and he found himself trapped.

He abandoned the machine and tried to make his way to safety through a swamp but found the going too hard. Another fire-fighter started to cut a track in to him but could not reach him. Wind Dropped

Taking advantage of a drop in the wind, Mr Stankovich returned to his bulldozer and set about making a firebreak—clearing an area half a chain square to bare earth. He said he had to wait about five minutes —“it seemed like an hour”—for the smoke and flames to clear sufficiently for him to drive out across six or seven Chains of burning scrub. “I was a bit scared, I can tell you. But when the flames died down a bit I decided there was still hope and I would go back. But it was only luck,” he said last night “It was pretty hot. I lost some hair and smelt the rubber of my gumboots burning.” Burning Off Mr Stankovich had lit the fire himself to burn off a few acres of scrub. Fanned by a brisk northeasterly, it jumped a fire break and swept up a narrow valley where cross-eddies and currents made its progress unpredictable and carried it into two neighbouring properties. No buildings were endangered. The Dargaville Fire Brigade was called but, hampered by lack of water, could do little to stop the fire which was eventually allowed to burn itself out.