Heavy Death Roll In French Forest Fires

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27166, 23 August 1949, Page 5

Heavy Death Roll In French Forest Fires

N ZP A—Copyright Rec. 9 p.m. PARIS, Aug. 21. The official death toll of the forest fires in south-western France was given as “at least 73 ” in a Ministry of the Interior communique published in Paris to-night. Paris newspapers, however, claimed that the deaths were nearer 100. The communique said 42 civilians and 18 soldiers had died fighting the fires during the past week. The great forest fire outside Bordeaux, in which a number of people lost their lives and many thousands of acres were devastated, is now under control. Several thousand firemen, troops, and volunteers who have been fighting the blaze for three days were helped to-day by a drop in the wind which had fanned the flames. The fire-swept area where the casualties occurred lies from seven to 25 miles south and south-west of Bordeaux, in a country of rolling vineyards, heath, and pine woods. Many country homes of Bordeaux people, chateaux belonging to vineyard owners, and wealthy estates, are in the fire-devastated area. Hundreds of Red Cross and rescue squads are combing the area in search of victims, most of whom were marooned by the speed of the flames, or were asphyxiated by smoke. The police have arrested nine teenage children on arson charges arising out of the forest fires. The arrests included two boys of 14 and a girl of 16 in south-west France, and > two brothers who lit a fire “for fun.”