TREMENDOUS BUSH FIRES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23044, 21 November 1936, Page 14

TREMENDOUS BUSH FIRES

SWEEP BLUE MOUNTAINS HEROIC WORK SAVES TOWNSHIPS (From Our Own Correspondent) SYDNEY, Nov. 11. Tremendous fires raging through bush and scrub dried by rainless weeks to inflammability caused damage on the eastern slopes of the Blue Mountains amounting to at least £20,000. For three days, and in places for four days, the flames desolated huge areas of picturesque valley and mountain bushland, leaving blackened and bare traces of their passage. Two townships, Glenbrook and Springwood, were threatened with destruction, but hundreds of fire-fighters, including 100 police rushed in motor buses from Sydney, strove mightily, and at the end of 24 hours had the fires under control. The fires started in the middle of three days of intense heat, during which the temperature rose to 100 degrees. It was hopeless when warnings were first given to stay the flames’ progress. All that could be done was to guard the townships that dot the mountain slopes by burning fire-breaks. With a roar that could be heard five miles away, flames 100 feet high raced through the bush. Hundreds of men, women and.children fought the flames on many miles of front, and in 24 hours the worst of the danger had passed, and the four principal townships, Springwood, Blaxland, Glenbrook and Faulconbridge, had been saved. The wind providentially veered from north to south, and swept the flames back in the direction they had come. At least 20 homes were destroyed and many others damaged, as well as miles of fencing, but a police superintendent estimated that the insurance cover on property saved amounted to £1,000,000. “ Heroes all—men, women and children,” was the description applied to the fire-fighters by the Acting Commissioner of Police (Mr Lynch). “I never before saw anything so awe-inspiring,” said Mr Lynch. “ The fire struck terror into the hearts of the unfortunate people whose homes and lives were endangered. I did not think it possible for such a fire to occur—the flames were racing faster than cars could travel. At one stage I did not think that the car containing Superintendent Carter and myself would get through. There was a great wall of flame and smoke ahead of us. I told the driver to put his head down and make an attempt to pass through the barrier, and, fortunately we made it.” “I have never seen anything like it,” said Fourth Officer Barber, of Fire Brigade Headquarters, who was in charge of the special detachments of firemen sent from Sydney. “ The flames between Glenbrook and Blaxland were so fierce that they leapt across the railway line and set alight to the tops of towering trees. It was a scene terrible for its desolation, but spectacular.” Among the homes threatened was that of Mr Norman Lindsay, the famous artist, at Springwood. At one time the artist’s wonderful collection of pictures, ship models, and copperplates of his etchings were moved out to the lawn. “ 1 had given up the studio and printing press for lost," said Mrs Rose Lindsay, the artist’s wife, whom firefighters praised' for her courage, resource and hospitality She spent more than £2O in sending supplies of beer and sandwiches to the thirsty and hungry men fighting the fires. When Mrs Lindsay was driving firefighters, a burning branch crashed down a few feet in front of her car. At a warning shout she trod on her brakes just in time. Disregarding the menace to her home, Mrs Lindsay raced along the main road collecting men when she saw the flames light the Red Cross Home at Springwood. Subsequently the firemen saved the Lindsav home. Only luck saved the lives of six police trainees under Constable Frost, of Springwood, who tried to save a weatherboard dwelling at Valley Heights. Although his bed was. ablaze, the occupant, an old man, refused to leave and had to be dragged to safety by the police. A minute later there was a terrific explosion and the dwelling dissolved sky-high in fragments Unknown to the police, there had been, it is suspected, a tin of explosive in the dwelling. A curious effect of the mountain fires, and of the numerous fires near Sydney, was that a pall of smoke drifted out to sea and so affected visibility that ships captains thought they were in dense fog. The master of the Norwegian motor ship Kattegat wirelessed from 60 miles out that he had been forced to reduce speed to dead slow because of what he thought was a fog, but actually was smoke. Officers of coastal and interstate vessels reported that they had not sighted the coast from Brisbane to Sydney, and one overseas liner was delayed for several hours because her officers could not locate the entrance of Sydney Harbour and the pilot steamer could not find her in the smoke haze.