FIRES IN BUSH.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 69, 18 February 1939, Page 11

FIRES IN BUSH.

WARNING AGAINST NEGLECT. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Feh. 17. Attributing the bulk of the damage done to native bush in New Zealand since November last to fires having started in scrub - and grass—some near roadsides where picnic parties had gathered—the Minister of Internal Affairs (Hon. W. E. Parry) expressed the opinion to-day that there was still, unfortunately, a lack of appreciation of tho consequences of carelessness among some members of the community who neglected to douse smouldering embers of fires that had boiled the billy, or a match that had lighted a pipe, a cigarette, or the butt of a cigarete. There were people, Mr Parry said, holding the view that all scrub was ugly and robbed the countryside and many of the ranges carrying native hush and ferns of their picturesqueness. They did not think when starting a fire, sometimes through carelessness, that the scrub saved soil erosion, protected the hush at the hack, or afforded help to young native trees to flourish. “There is also the possibility of the loss of valuable properties,” said the Minister. “These blazes among scrub bring to one a message clear in its seriousness, and let us all hope the effect is appreciatively registered. New Zealand does not want to see occur oven a miniature of the terrible fires in Victoria which brought in their train loss of life and millions of acres of fine bush and timber country.” .- •