FOREST FIRES SPREADING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19721, 22 August 1927, Page 9

FOREST FIRES SPREADING.

DEVASTATION IN FRANCE. ARREST OF A SHEPHERD. AN ALLEGATION OF ARSON. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received August 21, 5.5 p.m.) A. and N.Z.-Sun-Times. LONDON, Aug. 20. Messages from Paris state that fresh outbreaks of fire have occurred in the forests to the north-east of Marseilles. ■ Fanned by the wind the flames are gaining ground. Troops have been called out to assist the firemen. Flames have reached the forest of Frejus where a hospital and a military camp have been hastily evacuated. The combined efforts of soldiers and firemen have failed to stem the fires in the direction of Valescure. The newspaper Petit Parisien reports that a shepherd was arrested at Ajaccio, in Corsica, who is alleged to have confessed that he started fires which rscently devastated the forest of Bastia, in Corsica. The Pari- correspondent of the Times states that in less than a week half the wooded country of the Hautes Terel district has been turned into a blackened wilderness. This is now covered with a thick carpet of ashes. All the splendid trees in the Forest Des Adrets and Massif de Tanneron have been destroyed. The fires between the mountains and the coast originated with suspicious regularity at places which could not have been better chosen to produce the maximum of damage.