BATTLE WITH FLAMES

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 70, 24 March 1931, Page 7

BATTLE WITH FLAMES

KAURI FOREST IN DANGER

SPARKS FROM A BURN

(By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post.") AUCKLAND, This Day,

After several days' fighting with raging fires in the Omahuta State Forest" Hokiauga County, gangs of volunteers and forest workers, aided... by moro favourable weather . conditions, htvvo at last'mastered the flames. ; -' The fire had been burning for several days, but was not considered..dangerous, and on Tuesday, last it was thought that;all danger was over. ; . On Tuesday night, however, the wind, legan to freshen, and a strong; gale raged on Wednesday and Thursday, carrying the fire in a northerly direotion along the fringe of tte ««a kauri forest, and penetrating the forest for a considerable distance. . Owing to the terrific force of the •wind dense clouds of smoke from the. burning areas made it impossible for the workers to get within a mile of the main centre of the fire, which was spreading through the tree tops. _ _ ■ Tho fire started at the head of the Omahnta .Valley, .25 miles south of Kaitaia, on 11th March, by sparks from a burn on a section which had recently been settled. The flames got out of control owing to the excessively dry weather. . _ Burning embers were carried across the TJtkcre River at two points to the dry manuka, and fanned by a northern wind bore down on the Public Works camp. Several tents were burned, In a short time it was sweeping down the Omahuta Valley from north to south on a front a mile and a half wide. '•T'p to Friday* night not much damage had been done, the country-burned being mostly scrub_ and manuka,- but a ton-nero reserve of kauri", rikaa had b'eon swept'arid destroyed. "7 ' During one night a party of five men awoke- to find their hut! surrounded by fire. ■ They managed^to get clear. They found five other huts which had been owned by the Kauri Timber Company in ashes. The men had to work- hard to stop the fire-getting Tound the end of a break which, they made. ■ t .- >\ Miles of country outside the main bush are smouldering,: and there is ,a danger that high, winds may fan the flames into 'activity .again.