FIRE CAUSED BY SPARKS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 26 September 1924, Page 5

FIRE CAUSED BY SPARKS.

RAILWAY DEPARTMENT’S ATTITUDE. REPLY TO FARMERS’ UNION. (HST TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 25. At their annual conference delegates to the New Zealand Farmers’ Union passed the following resolution: “That where it can be proved the Railway Department is responsible for an outbreak of fire, it should be held responsible for damage.” The Minister for Railways now has replied in the following terms.-.“I have the honour to inform you that the Department is fully seized of the desirability of using every endeavour to minimise flie danger of fire arising from the use of locomotives, and it accordingly takes every care to eliminate danger by the provision on its engines of the best spark arresting appliances available, and, as far as circumstances permit, by burning only such classes of coal as do not tend to emit sparks. The fact that during hot weather fires occur at many places remote from the railway shows that fires commence through other causes than sparks from locomotives, and there is little doubt that many fires which settlers are apt to ascribe to sparks from railway engines are caused in other, ways. The Department also co-operates in the preventing of fires by burning off inflammable material on land alongside lines at suitable times, and will continue to use it's best endeavours to prevent the spreading of any fires that may accidentally be caused. The Department has never at any time repudiated liability for damage resultant from an outbreak of fire when the Departmenet has been in any way at fault, but obviously it cannot accept the position that because a fire occurs in proximity to its lines the Department should ipso facto be responsible for any damage which may arise therefrom in the absence of any negligence on its part.”