FIRE IN PLANTATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 71, 21 February 1939, Page 10

FIRE IN PLANTATION.

NORTH CANTERBURY OUTBREAK

Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, Feb. 20. A fire in the Balmoral plantation of the State forest was confined to-day to an area of 200 .acres by the action of five forestry workers who extinguished a fresh outbreak beyond a firebreak. The area partly destroyed was planted in young trees, some of which are expected to revive if there should be rain.

The fire was the first to occur in the Balmoral plantation since it was opened in 1916, but it was the second in North Canterbury within a week, the first, which was quickly checked, breaking out at Medbury last week. Starting at tho north-western end of the 24,000 acre forest, about seven miles from Culverden, and fanned by a north-west wind, the fire soon got out of control.

Tlio spectacular forest fire attracted people from as far away as Hanmer, and at the height of the fire, which began about 2 o’clock, 150 persons were fighting it with shovels. They scraped away the thick ground covering of needles from the pinus insignus trees. The thick undergrowth of old manuka scrub made the checking of the fire difficult. Disaster to the Balmoral forest was threatened at one stage. The method of fighting the fire by starting another fire at tho break was used near the junction of the short-cut road and tho Takoa Road, but a sjiark set old trees across the road alight. The fresh outbreak was fought courageously by five forestry workers with shovels. For tunately, there was a lull in the wind, and the danger of a serious spread of tire passed.