WIDESPREAD BOSH FIRES

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 151, 23 December 1926, Page 12

WIDESPREAD BOSH FIRES

IN NEW SOUTH WALES

HUGE CROP AND STOCK

LOSSES

SIX FATALITIES.

(From Oi.r Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY^ 16th December,

' Following hot, rainless weeks, fires .have been ravaging the central, western, southwestern, and southern districts of New South Wales during the past fortnight. They have caused losses of property, including magnificent wheat crops, harvested wheat, and stock, as well as pasturages, fencing, and hJmes, amounting at a conservative estimate to £2,000,000. They have been responsible for six fatalities, £our being the result of burns, one of suffocation, and one of the effects of exhaustion caused by fighting the flames. Scores of settlers, most of them building up,hopes of future prosperity on the proceeds ot bumper wheat crops, have been burnt out. Thousands of sheep have been ■ roasted alive. Hundreds of miles of fencing have been destroyed. Dozens upon dozens ot wheat crops, ready for the harvesters, have been-reduced to cinders. .This is -the sad toll of the tire fiend. The fires started in earnest about a fortnight ago, and about the middle ot last week herculean efforts by the fire-fighters seemed to have checked the run oZ the flames. Then followed last Friday, a day when the temperature ran well over the century, and throughout that day and the week-end towns in the affected areas-were emptied of able-bodied men, who had been rushed by motor-cars and m one case a special train to clanger spots. At different times during)those three days seven or eight towns, including Cootamundra, l.arromine, Marulan, and Adelong, in addition to smaller settlements, were saved from fire only by the gallantry and endurance of men and women who combated its progress. WORST IN THE STATE'S HISTORY. It is admitted in all quarters that the fires have been the worst ia this State's history. This message from Eden, a town on the far south coast, is typical of those •from the affected area: "The terrifying invasion by fire will be remembered as an occasion comparable with a similar occurrence on Black Thursday, 1883, when the existence of the town was similarly threatened .by an insweeping bush lire that wrought considerable destruction. Old hands say, however, that the onrush of •Friday's conflagration was the most awful and terrifying in their experience. In the morning bands of fire-fighters organised by the forestry officer and shire council endeaxoured ineffectually to check the progress of the fire some miles from Eden. In the afternoon an already high northwesterly increased to the velocity of a gale, and the fire spread with awful rapidity at Nullica. After burning two homes and a sawmill, the fire -rapidly advanced on settlements nearer the town, burning two more houses. The sweep of the fire through the last two miles of the forest into the town occupied but a few minutes. From nearby hills was seen a wall of leaping flames irresistibly advancing at frightful speed. It wa3 a magnificent but fearsome sicht. Isolated homes on the western side" of the town were saved.as a result, of the defenders fighting the. flames u*til midnight. The flames crossed a street parallel with the main street,, and were only conquered at close quarters in the premises at the rear of the business, buildings, the igniting of any one of which would have involved the destruction of all. Some women and children were taken to the sea beach, where they remained until control of the fire made th^ir return home possible."

ANOTHER TYPICAL DESCRIPTION.

Here is another typical description of the fire-fighters' task, this time contained in a'messa£e froni Wagga,'the .(capital" of' the Riverina: "One of the most-desperate stages of the big fire which swept across a number of farms east of Wagga centred oh Mr. J. S. Carter's Kyeamba Meadows. It WBB here that tremendous losses occurred, and lives wefe endangered. Forest Hills is a group o£ rich mixed farms, carrying dense crops of wheat,'lucerne, and heavy pastures, heavily stocked with' dairy cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses. Grass fires ' burned like an inferno. No man dared to stand up in the oncoming flames, but was compelled to use bushcratt in starting burning trails a long distance in front of the fires/ Owing, to the half gale blowing, the fire fighters were again and again beaten back by the flames which swept on in waves, often reaching the fire break before it bad time to burn -a sufficient distance to check the flames, which simply swrept across aud onwards. In such instance, the fire-fighters were compelled to race for life to another point further on, and commence work over again. The pace at which the fire travelled ia revealed by the fact that in one paddock it swept through a crop and a header arid a tractor that were in the crop were poetically undamagedr" BRAVE WOMEN. Naturally there were many narrow escapes from death, and the surprising, part, according to those in the midst of the areas, is that not more than six fatalities occurred. Wives and daughters of farmers stood shoulder to shoulder with their male relatives in homeric efforts to save their worldly possessions, often representing a lifetime of saving and striving. Or if they were not actually fighting the flames, they were rushing on horseback and in motor-ears to exhausted fire-fighters with' much-needed refreshments or carrying the alarm for more help. How the decriers of modern women, the cynics who say they are only fit for jazz and cigarette smoking, would have had their opinions flung in their faces by a sight of these women and girls, with smoke-smeared faces and torn clothes, aiding the great work of repelling the fires. >, A MIRACULOUS ESCAPE. No more miraculous escape was there than that of the wife, family, and women servants of a grazier named Chapman. Chapman and his male employees'were out fighting the flames ,on a neighbour's property when the wind carried sparks close to the, Chapmans' homestead, and set alight to the' dry grass. The flames had encircled the house, in which were1 Mrs. Chapman and her scared children, when the men dashed back. They hurried the . \ womenfolk into a small waterhole, -where 'they stood up to their necks in water, en-' 'wrapped in wet blankets, while. the-men saved the house. The flames actually burned to the edge of the waterhole, but thanks to the precautions taken, the women and children escaped with nothing more serious than a slight scorching. How have'these fires started? Sparks from engines of trains have been reported as responsible in more than one district. .Careless workers and campers -have caused others. In one case the over-heated bearing of a farm-tractor in a wheat crop started one that swept through thousands of acres. In some Riverina districts, there have been sinister rumours that men refused employment by some farmers laid phosphorous that burst into flames and started fires causing tens of thousands of pounds damage. ■ Tlie fires, at any rate, have caused the State Goverumefit serious concern, and it has decided to appoint a special committee of three to institute an' inquiry to elucidate the causes, and to see .what steps can be taken to obviate the danger. It also has taken steps to lend assistance wherever it is needed.