FIRES IN THE COUNTRY.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIV, Issue 24, 11 January 1924, Page 4

FIRES IN THE COUNTRY.

SETTLERS ANXIETIES.

STRENUOUS FIGHT IN WAIRARAPA. Mast er ton, Jan. 10. In common with other centres where drought conditions are prevailing, settlers in parts of the Wairarapa valley are experiencing trying times coping with grass and bush fires. Picnic parties and the Railway Department are the principal offenders. Yesterday shortly after th© down express passed Waingawa a firt sprang up in paddocks owned by Mrs L. Compton, adjoining the line, Fanned by a strong westerly wind the fire spread over an area of approximately 20 acres. Railway gangers. Power Board employees working in the vicinity, and passers-by banded together to combat the conflagration, the spread of which was only arrested when within ten yards of a residence. Several of th© fire-fighters were burned and prostrated by the terrific struggle to stem the approaching flames. Tn© owners of property adjoining favourite picnic resorts have suffered through loss of crops and timber and are resorting to measures of forbidding trespass. BAD TIME IN CANTERBURY. Ashburton, Jan. 10. The destruction of pasture and forestry plantations and belts by fire, usually attributed to sparks from steam engines, continues in various quarters in the Ashburton district keeping settlers as alert for fire calls as an up-to-date city brigade, and involving terrible anxiety. Half a mile of the County Council forest belt at Carew. 28 miles from Ashburton, was destroyed on Wednesday, despite the efforts of 150 settlers. It is believed the belt was ignited by a spark from a traction engine hauling wood. Th© fire caught a plantation across th© road, kut constant fighting smothered the outbreak. GRASS FIRE AT POUKAWA. Yesterday afternoon at about 3.45, the aV ready oppressive heat became overpowering and the smothering conditions which began to prevail found an explanation in the hazy clouds of smoke spreading in the sky j from the direction of Poukawa, indi- ' eating the presence of a big ’ grass i fire in that district.

Inquiries elicited the fact that, at 1.45 p.m., some men saw a fir© break out in Mr H. M. Campbell’s paddocks near “The Kennels” and. within a brief - eriod of time, a willing band of fire fighters attacked the blazing grass with wet sacks and beaters, in an endeavour to extinguish the fire. After hard and determined work the flames were brought under control, but not before some 400 acres of grass had been swept. None of the fences were burnt. The fire took place a couple of miles from the homestead, so that Mr Campbell’s residence was never in any danger.