Forest Service Watches Fire-Danger Graph

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30631, 23 December 1964, Page 10

Forest Service Watches Fire-Danger Graph

With holidays about to begin and the summer sun shining brightly, the Forest Service is keeping its eye on a graph showing green for rainfall and red for danger. At present the graP" *® almost entirely red. The last rain in Canterbury forests was a fortnight ago, and the persistent dry winds then quickly erased the effect of the rain. Forestry people here are particularly watchful, because the Balmoral and Eyrewell forests are the most dangerous in New Zealand because of the low humidity. They lost 7000 acres of timber at Balmoral in a disastrous fire in 1955. and Eyrewell forest is littered with very dry. wind-thrown trees. Mr T. E. C. Bridge, the senior forest ranger, said yesterday that contractors stopped work at Eyrewell last week, but so much was at stake there that a special stand-by crew of eight firefighters would remain on duty, as well as the two manned fire look-outs.

In spite of extremely dry conditions, particularly in North Canterbury, it has been a good season so far. “We’ve had the utmost co-operation from everybody,” said Mr Bridge. He said the biggest cause of fires was the roadside picnic “boil-up.” Lighting fires was illegal in rural fire districts surrounding forests and also in those counties which had declared closed fire seasons.

Elsewhere, the safest places to light picnic fires were river-beds and proper picnicground fireplaces. “Unluckily,” said Mr Bridge, “very few persons light unauthorised fires now, thanks to the publicity we’ve given to this danger,” He added that very few fires were caused by things over which people had no control. Nearly every one was a result of carelessness with fires, matches, and cigarette butts. Mr Bridge said that Hanmer was a comparatively safe forest because of its heavier

and more regular rainfall. Ashley was also fairly safe, because it was greener than the forests on the plains.