SUPREME COURT £8663 Claimed After Fire In Plantation
The hearing of a claim for damages against a farmer whose gorse fire is alleged to have spread into part of the Selwyn Plantation Board’s plantation near Hororata four years ago began in the Supreme Court yesterday.
The Selwyn Plantation Board (Mr R. A. Young, with him Mr N. G. A. Young) Claims £8663 14s 9u from Gordon Wolseley Wright, a farmer, of Glentunnel (Mr R. P, Thompson, with him Mr C. B. Atkinsoin). The hearing is before Mr Justice Henry and a jury. Mr Young said that Wright lit a fire near the boundary to burn off a heavy growth of gorse on Sunday, October 22, 1961. The wind was then blowing away from the plantation, but it changed direction and the fire spread into the plantation and destroyed 100 acres of trees and 22 J chains of fence. The board claimed that to light a fire in those circumstances, when the country was
tinder dry, was dangerous, and that Wright was liable for the consequences. Alternatively, it claimed that Wright was negligent in lighting the fire in those circumstances, and that he should have seen that it was likely to spread. The board claimed £5283 4s 9d for the cost of replanting, £5B 10s for half the cost of replacing the fence, and £3322 for the board’s loss of the benefit of 10 years’ growth of the trees.
Mr Young said the plantation was planted with Douglas fir, Corsican pine, Scotch pine, and larch. Gorse provided shelter for the young trees, and by October, 1961, some of the trees had grown above the level of the gorse. Weather records at Barfield, 15 miles away, showed that the spring of 1961 was the driest for many years. It was the driest October for at least 41 years. For October and November, evaporation amounted to 9in and rainfall was only 1.69 in. “We contend,” said Mr Young, “that it was so dry that it was a foolhardy thing for any farmer to start a fire in such conditions.”
He said that Wright sought a permit in the previous year, 1960, to burn off gorse, and it was granted under strict conditions. One condition was that he must notify adjoining owners. But in October, 1961, Wright did not seek a permit for his fire, and although he told a neighbour, Mr Chapman, of his plans, he did not tell the plantation board. Mr Young said that any responsible farmer would have borne in mind that, in that county in particular, the wind could change direction. Evidence would be that the wind direction in that area changed rapidly and frequently. “It is not a defence,” said Mr Young, “to say that the wind change was an act of God.”
On the day of the fire, Mr E. A. Cooney, secretary to the Selwyn Plantation Board, already had another fire on his hands, in the Kimberley road plantation about a mile from Barfield. When he heard of the fire in the Morten block, he arranged for the general alarm to be sounded.
Mr Young said that 25 farmers went to fight the fire, including one who used a light aircraft for aerial spotting, communicating with a truck on the ground. Their action saved a considerable proportion of the plantation. Mr Young said that Wright admitted lighting a fire, but denied that it spread into the plantation. Neighbour's Evidence
Arthur Gilbert Chapman, now of Blenheim, said he was Wright’s neighbour in 1961. About 1.30 p.m. on October 22 Wright asked him whether it was safe to light a fire, and he advised him that it was quite safe because the wind was then easterly or southeasterly.
Another neighbour was also burning patches of gorse. In the afternoon Chapman went to look at Wright’s fire, and while he watched he saw a small fire burst into flame inside the plantation near the corner. Wright tried to put it out, but it got away from him.
The witness said he raised the alarm, and then went back to help. While a bulldozer was trying to cut a firebreak the wind changed to the north-west, and it became too dangerous to continue.
To Mr Thompson, the witness said that rotational burning of gorse was, the practice in the area. “If you want to break in a bit of ground,” he said, “you give her a couple of rounds with the plough, then you set her alight.” The witness agreed that he advanced the theory after the fire that the fire in the plantation could have been started by a burning hare, opossum, or rabbit running across the boundary. Robert Douglas Dick, chief soil conservator for the North Canterbury Catchment Board, said that though fire permits were issued to Wright in 1959 and 1960 no permit was issued to him in 1961.
The hearing will continue today.
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