CARELESS SMOKERS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 126, 23 February 1944, Page 4

CARELESS SMOKERS

How Cigarette Butts Cause Losses By Fire

“Thev .say confession is good for the soul and the conscience aiid I want to be on side,” ran a letter received by the Alinister of Internal Affairs, Air. Parry, yesterday. “Without any palaver,” the writer continued, “I'll tell you I started a grass fire from a cigarette butt I threw away. It was like this, Air. Parry: I was talking to a friend of mine over the gate of my seaside bach. The conversation got interesting and at the height of my laughter I, more through force of habit than anything else, threw ihq. butt of my fag on, I thought, the track to the bach. What happened killed all conversation and nice thoughts! It took half a dozen of us a couple or hours before we mastered the fire, and I can tell you we had some anxious moments. I write because my ease makes me agree with you that the cigarette butt is to blame for 80 per cent, of the fires and the destruction of beautiful native bush. . . .”

Air. Parry said the frankness of the letter had not only cleared the writer’s conscience but had done a good service in showing the danger of the cigarette butt thrown carelessly away while still alight. There was, he said, a campaign in England against the cigarette butt. A copy of the “Observer,” London, sent to him had the following pertinent lines below a photograph of a building in flames: “The production of 15,000 bombs was entirely held up when a fire started bv a dropped cigarette end seriously damaged a factory turning out bomb-tail units. Over 1000 fires are helping the enemy every day—and don’t forget, most of them aro started by people who never started a fire before. Everyone should make absolutely certain a match or cigarette end is really out before they throw it, away.”