Bush-Fire Danger On West Coast

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31270, 17 January 1967, Page 10

Bush-Fire Danger On West Coast

(From Our Own Reporter) GREYMOUTH, January 16. A light breeze kept the temperature down slightly in Greymouth today, but the dry weather being experienced has caused Greymouth’s Chief Fire Officer (Mr G. W. Nelson) to issue a general warning on the danger of scrub and bush fires.

Fires are reported in the back country and in South Westland.

Mr Nelson said the urban area was not yet menaced, but a serious threat was developing. The Grey County Council received seven calls from county residents today for water to replenish their tanks. The Karoro climatological office reported that Sunday’s screen temperature was 80.2 degrees, two degrees higher than the previous peak for the last six years recorded on February 15, 1960. Humidity was down to 62 on Sunday, but today it was 93. The general temperature was lower, and the thermometer outside Broadcasting House registered a peak of 80 degrees today, compared with 87 degrees on Sunday. Less than an inch of rain has fallen this year. The next lowest fall in the last six years was a little more than 3in in the same period of 1963. Buller is still having its

I hottest spell for many years. Beaches and creeks have been invaded by bathers, and the only complaints have been of blistered feet from the hot sand and of tar sprays from heated highways. Temperatures up to 87.9 degrees have been recorded.