HUGE TOLL OF BUSH FIRES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 16 January 1928, Page 8

HUGE TOLL OF BUSH FIRES

ENORMOUS DAMAGE IN AUSTRALIA DEATH AND DEVASTATION SYDNEY', bill January. It. would scorn Ilnil Inc,south of New South Wales—-the Eivoriiia country—and the north-east of Victoria are fated each year to be razed by hush fires. For years past now each summer seer, terrifying, country-wide blazes, bringing death and destruction with them, and there appears lo be no wav to avoid the annual tle\astatimi.

This, year is no exception, and in (lie urea named, New; Y ear’s Day will, live loiig in I be. memory of residents as* "Red Sunday.” Acres and acres of grass and miles of fencing were swept by tlie tires which sprang up in various parts of tlio Riverilia ipid lidl a red glow in tin: sky all day Jong.

It is suspected that the, first one. was .started by a. cureless holiday camper, and it was the sparks (lying from ibis blaze which had LOO men from tlie surrounding districts lighting all day aud night to save their homesteads and their stock.

On the Victorian side the tiro threatened Wodonga, a .town on the main Byd-iiey-Alelboiiriie road and the railway line. it had become so serious that our owners from the New .South Wales side rallied with fire-lighters and rushed a huge force to the vicinity. Numerous head of sheep and cattle, trapped in paddocks, and driven mail by the encroaching (lames, were roasted and thousands of acres of precious grass, and valuable fencing went up in smoke. Practically the whole of one station comprising 200 acres was swept, while all the landholders in the vicinity are heavv losers.

Bread supply ran out in Wodonga, and more hud to be sent over from New South Wales. Ladies established a depot Tor packing bumpers of food, which were sent out to the men fighting the tlaines.

After they had managed to check all the tires in the Wodonga, district the lighters found they were required further south of Benalla, where a fire on a live-mile front caused tremendous damage. At Myrrlicc eight horses were caught by the ffiuiies and roasted to death.

A party of twelve fire-lighters, after working all day, found themselves stranded 17 miles, from Benalla, no cars being available to return' them to tho town. They were in (tie midst of .the (ire area, and had to walk nil the way back to the town.

They were alt exhausted when they reached safety.

Fires still rage intermittently in those districts, and in other parts of New South Wales and Victoria, tlio amount of the damage being impossible to estimate; but certainly approaching some hundreds of thousands of pounds.