MOUNTAIN ON FIRE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20330, 11 February 1928, Page 12

MOUNTAIN ON FIRE

FLAMES SWEEP TE AROHA PEAK. VALUABLE BUSH DESTROYED. VIGOROUS FIGHT TO SAVE " TOWN. (Per United Press Association.) AUCKLAND, February 10. Fire swept a large area, on T© Aroha Mountain last night, and for some hours anxiety was felt for the safety of buddings on the outskirts of the town. Hundreds of acres of picturesque bush and scrub were destroyed even at 10 p.m., when the risk to the town seemed to be over, there was a wall of flame over a mile long, making its way up a gully near Bald Spur. The water reservoir on the hill was endangered, and the fears of the residents wer© aggravated by the failure of electric light. Tile fire originated in the Ruakaka suburb, where blackberry was being burned off. At 4.45 p.m., when the alarm was given, the flames had reached 30ft in height, and had jumped a creek in two wide tracks. Ashes began to fall over the town as the sheets of flame rushed through the dry bush, but the wind carried the sparks away from the residential area. Trainer’s sawmill was in the centre of the outbreak, and the tire-fighters decided to salvage the equipment. The bush surrounding the mill was demolished rapidly before a wall of fire with a frontage cf nearly a mile and a-half. The mill was saved, but the fire laid waste practically all the bush on which the plant is dependant. The mill engine and wagon were dragged to safety down the mill track, as it was feared that the clearing might not prove a sufficient fire break. It seemed as if the workers might be cut off from escape by a sudden change of wind, but a lull at the critical moment averted this danger. As the flames spread through the thick bush several houses were menaced, but were saved by a change in the direction of the wind. At 10.30 p.m.. the fire-fighters concluded that the outskirts of the town were safe and ceased work for the night. The fire had exhausted itself by midnight, though at one time ther© was a circle of flame six miles in circumference, and every gully and - mountain recess was a raging inferno. This morning the mountain appeared as a charred peak, and numerous smoking trunks of trees are the frim remnants of one of Nature s most eautiful collections of trees and shrubs, that had taken scores of years to grow. When the fire ascended on the peak (exceeding 5000 ft) it gradually died out. having apparently absorbed all the lighter growth during its quick transit across the Mountain.