MANGAOPORO VALLEY FIRES DYING DOWN

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22584, 12 March 1948, Page 4

MANGAOPORO VALLEY FIRES DYING DOWN

'{RESIDENTS of the Mangaoporo Valley and surrounding district were relieved this morning to find only a slight further extension of the area affected by the log and grass fires which, earlier in the week, flared up and endangered the Uruahi station homestead.

The Ruatoria Fire Brigade took its < equipment to the Mangaoporo Valley last night, and was prepared to deal with any fresh threats to buildings that might have arisen. A brisk northwesterly wind whipped up sparks and flame, along a ridge well behind the homestead of Uruahi, and also revived the smouldering fire in isolated patches of logs nearer the house; but at no time was there any renewal of the threat, of Tuesday and Wednesday. The fiire fighters made a small dam in a creek near the homestead, from which water could have been drawn if necessary with the brigade’s equipment. Patches of logs are still smouldering at various points ,and the fire is very much alive under the surface, working through partly-rotted stumps and roots of the big timber which formerly gtew , in this area. The threat will not be..

over finally until there is a good fall of rain. Conditions throughout the east of the East Coast area are safe, so far as the fire hazard is concerned, but residents are being impressed with the necessity of guarding against the slightest carelessness in handling fire in the open country. It is recalled that one of the most destructive fires of the past few years had its origin under the site of a fencer’s billy-fire, where sparks got into a dried root anfi travelled underground for some feet before breaking out on the surface among rough growth. Reports from the high country behind Gisborne indicated that no signs of bush or log fires had developed over ‘L wide scope of country visible from Trafford s Hill; and that farmers were very much alive to the danger, and exercising the keenest precautions against starting fires,