RAETIHI BUSH FIRES

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 45, 21 January 1928, Page 2

RAETIHI BUSH FIRES

TOWN SAFE AT PRESENT. TWO HOUSES DESTROYED. Although there was hardly any wind to-day Eaetihi is still endangered by bush fires (wrote the special correspondent of the Auckland Herald from Obakune Junction oil Thursday). Yesterday was a day. of hard work for the men in the town. Although the residents did not have to combat a wall of fire sweeping over native bush, they had to deal with a more subtle thing in the shape of smouldering dead timber.

Before Raetihi can be deemed really safo a heavy rainfall is necessary. For the past few days, with bush fires smouldering in tho surrounding country and being fanned fitfully to hie on occasions to swccp'gradually nearer the town, the residents have been living in an atmosphere of suppressed excitement. Although strenuous efforts on tho part of the townspeople have saved a repetition of the disastrous fire of 1918, there have been cases of somewhat serious loss.

The position became so serious yesterday that several families abandoned their houses. However, this course proved unnecessary. The flames had been advancing toward the town from tho direction of Rangataua. It is certain tho fires have been started through tho efforts of some settlers to burn out tree stumps on their property. A light breeze from the south-east has carried sparks and glowing embers in tho direction of Raetihi. They have fallen among other dead timber, which fills thousands of acres in the county. On the road from Ohakune to Raetihi there are huge stretches of dead trees still standing, a memorial to tho days before the timber mills, when the land was one vast tract of virgin bush. Now, through the over-keenness of settlers who are burning stumps, several months too early, these dead forests are smouldering sullenly. " >

TIMBER STACKS BURNED. The risk from the fires became really apparent for the first time on Sunday, when a portion of Foster’s Mill, on the Ohakune-Raetihi Road, and large quantities of sawn and stacked timber were destroyed. The main mill buildings and a huge pile of sawdust behind them were saved. Ever since Sunday workmen have been employed with hoses scattering water. all over anything inflammable. On Tuesday night a freshening breeze seemed to foretell danger, but fears were lulled by the calmness of yesterday morning. In the afternoon, however, the breeze again freshened and the haze of smoke which Raetihi has learned to regard as inevitable during the summer months thickened to the consistency of a London fog, with all its gloom, but none of its moisture. People were coughing and their eyes were smarting through the smokeladen atmosphere. AN UNFORTUNATE SETTLER Raetihi is prepared against a recurrence of the 1918 fires. A fire brigade has been formed and there is a good water pressure. As soon as it was learned that the fires were approaching the town residents turned out and with buckets and kerosene tins and a plentiful supply of water from .a creek assisted tlie brigade to keep in check the advance of the flames. the town was threatened the settlers oh the outskirts had of necessity to fend for themselves. Two houses on property owned by Mrs G. Cunningham were soon in the grip of the flames and all efforts made to save them were useless. They burned like tinder. • _ Mrs Cunningham, a widow, who is milking cows on her 24-acre section, was attending the calves this morning amid the wreckage of her home. The cowshed alone was left standing. She has now been through four bad bush fires and has lost money in all of them. On this occasion the insurance on her proEerty had lapsed and she will be a eavy loser. Prices for land in the locality are said to be falling and the constant menace of bush fires makes it hard to win a living from the soil. TOURING CAR TRAPPED. Mrs Cunningham’s houses were the only dwellings of any importance to be destroyed, but only the strenuous efforts of a hastily-enlisted bucketbrigade headed off the flames from one of Smith’s timber mills which are scattered all over the locality. Even then one of the outbuildings was razed to the ground. A light touring car was trapped yesterday in a narrow spot on the road between Ohakune and Raetihi. Scrub on the roadside was burning fiercely and the driver’s view was obscured by the dense smoke. The car went over the side of the road into a ditch, but fortunately the occupants escaped injury. So bad was the visibility along some portions of the road that the service cars were unable to get through to Raetihi yesterday afternoon. RAILWAY STATION ENDANGERED In the track of the fire was mucii more dead timber and ialso some patches of fairly dense native bush. The flames were aproaching over new land, the 1918 fire having swept in from the north-east. At one stage yesterday afternoon the hospital and railway station to the south of the town were both endangered and a special train was despatched from Ohakune with all the hose available, some being brought from Taihape. The dry grass, tree stumps, and bush near the hospital were given a thorough soaking, and the bucket carriers did work of inestimable value. _ Unless one has seen the fires spreading it is difficult to believe how appanently innocent old stumps can be agents in the demolition of forests. It was a fight against odds, and as the evening drew on and the atmosphere grew more dense with smoke, it seemed that the fire must gain a .hold in the timber on the town side of‘the creek. But at about nine o’clock the wind dropped. To-day the wind was spasmodic, and not once was it strong enough to give cause for alarm. !