BULLER GORGE COAL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19282, 20 September 1924, Page 15

BULLER GORGE COAL.

IN DANGER FROM FIRES.

(From Oub Own Cobbespondent.) WELLINGTON, September 19. While the House was considering the Mines Department’s estimates this afternoon Mr Holland (Buller) mentioned that in the Buller Gorge a timber area of 400 acres was being surveyed. Of this 200 acres overlapped a coal area of 164 acres. There would, he said, be grave danger of (ho coals being set on fire by reason of the handling of the timber. After the bush bad been worked there would be dead timber, and if it caught fire there were outcrops of coal that would also catch fire, so that the whole of the coal in the gorge would be in danger. Two eases of fire in the gorge had already occurred owing to the taking of timber off three acres. The coal had been twice on fire and but for the fact that there was a supply of water available it could not have been put out Constant fires in the locality had increased the area of bush destroyed from three to 25 acres, so that now over this area there was a mass of fern and dead timber, that only wanted a match to it to cause a serious fire. There would be no chance of getting a flow of water to the coal there. A fire might mean the loss of millions of tons of coal to the dominion. They had the example before them of the seam at Ngakawa which was constantly burning. He urged the Minister to get a report made in regard to the danger in the Buller Gorge. The Hon. Mr Anderson, in reply, said he bad not beard that the Forestry Department was letting areas on large coal rights. He recognised the danger there was from fire under such circumstances. It would be a national calamity if the coal area in the Buller Gorge was set on fire. Some time ago the Government set a proclamation over the coal areas that were left so that they would be available for State purposes when the railway was put through.