HEAVY BUSH FIRES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1509, 31 January 1901, Page 50

HEAVY BUSH FIRES.

CONSIDERABLE DAMAGE.

A FIERY WHIRLWIND.

LAUNCESTON, January 26. Serious bush fires, the result of the hot. dry weather, are raging in the vicinity of Queenstown.

When the fire was at its height an extraordinary sight was witnessed. The fire was beating up a hill away from some houses when it encountered a fierce -whirlwind, which caught the fire, bent it to a. thin column of flame, and whirled it M >wn the hill towards the houses. As it reached the first hut the wind seemed to blow the fire right out; but the force of the gale was scarcely less disastrous, as it unroofed the hut and hurled the building a distance of come yards against a house. A few minutes later the hut and the house were on fire, and they were speedily demolished.

The whirlwind, which lasted three or four minutes, unroofed a number of other buildings in the neighbourhood. At North Lyell the fire was most serious. Rows of boardinghouses and some thirty miners’ dwellings were destroyed, as well as the residences of two mine managers. A certain amount of damage was caused to the Mount Lyell Company’s haulage line at South Tharsis, and the concentrating mill was only eaved with difficulty. The most serious damage done was to the new Queen river tram-line, which was destroyed for a considerable distance, together with a number of bridges.