Bush Fires in Australia.

Southern Cross, Volume 13, Issue 46, 10 February 1906, Page 9

Bush Fires in Australia.

TOSS OF LIFE. HEARTRENDING SCENES OF ... AGONI. HEROIC RESCUE WORK. The disastrous bush fires which were reported last week to be raging in the Mount Fatigue, Mount Best, and South Gippsland districts have been attended by such terrible loss of life and awful scenes of horror that every heart in Australia wall go out in sympathy with the sorely-stricken settlers, who are bereft of home, clothing and food, and in many cases are mourning the loss of relatives who have died in the flames. For miles throughout the district mentioned (writes the Melbourne Age of Feb.. 3) the bush fires have since been raging with fearful violence, devastating everything they came in contact with. Hundreds of settlers have been rendered destitute and homeless through the fire having completely destroyed their homes and everything they possessed in the world, and for a space of miles the districts named have been turned into a desolate, charred, smoking waste. The flames, driven by the fierce hot .wind, turned the affected area for miles into a veritable furnace, in which numbers lost their lives whilst vainly fleeing for a place of safety. The most awful disaster of the kind is reported from Toora, where five little children of one family (Lonsdale), after being placed on the road by their mother, became confused by the fires surrounding them, and perished by rushing into the flames. Toora is an agricultural township, situate near the coast of Corner Inlet, on the Muddy Creek, which was dried up by the terrific heat. It is surrounded by heavily-wooded country, and in this fierce fires sprang up, completely surrounding and cut, ting of! the township about 11 o’clock on Tuesday, 23rd Jan.: The first outbreak occurred in the densely - timbered Hoddle Ranges, which overlook the township, and it spread with such rapidity that in a short time the whole ranges appeared to be ablaze. The scene was one of the weirdest grandeur, but the terrified inhabitants of the little town saw that the fire was surrounding them, and they turned out en masse to fight it. Business was entirely suspended, and the townspeople struggled desperately to subdue the flames. The heat was intense, and great clouds of suffocating smoke almost hid the township from view. In these conditions an heroic band of men, women, and children laboured hard to keep the flames from encroaching on the settlement. The fire, driven by the blast, soon covered the whole of the intervening six miles between Toora and Foster, which it threatened to envelop. Meantime, writes our local correspondent, a new danger menaced Toora. On the west of Mount Best —where the timber is of enormous size, with thick undergrowth, another fire broke out, and swept over the mount, destroying everything in its course. All the h®inesteads on the mountain were swept out of existence, as were the new Wesleyan,

Church, the State School,’ and the schoolteacher’s home. Old residents of Gippsland, who have had experience of many bush fires describe the present outbreak as the most terrible they have ever seen. It has not traversed so broad a stretch of country as the great fire of 1898, and as far as can be gathered at present the destruction of property has been not quite so great as was caused by the previous visitation, but this week’s conflagration has transcended all previous fires in the tragic loss of life which has attended it, and in the awful swiftness with which the destruction of life and property was wrought. The wind, when the fire started in the Hoddle Ranges (Gippsland) a few miles westward of Foster, was blowing a gale, and when the fire had gathered force and made a face it sw T ept along, a perfect tornado of flames, destroying all ,before it in its rapid and irresistible progress. The locality is heavily timbered, most of the trees being over 100 feet in height. There is a dense undergrowth of scrub and fern, except where small clearances surrounding the homes of the settlers mark the beginning of the herculean task of subduing the forest. There was consequently an abundance of fuel for the flames, and they made a raging avalanche of fire, with lurid tongues shotting 150 feet high into the murky atmosphere. Early on Tuesday the residents of Foster were startled by the appearance of the fire rapidly approaching the town over the hills to the westward. A rush was made to- meet the enemy, but it travelled with; the speed of an express train. The residences of Mr Alex. Fleet and Mr Thomas were in the course of the destroying element, but before those who were rushing to the rescue could reach them, they were in flames, and in a few minutes were reduced to a blackened heap of ruins. Sparks were falling on the roof of the state school, and the whole township was threatened with destruction, when, by a providential dispensation, the direction of the wind changed, and Foster was saved from annihilation. The fire then swept along the range towards Mount Squarotop. an eminence some distance north of Foster. The alarmed settlers were immediately roused to action to save their homes and their families. Living as they do in comparative isolation, each man has to fight for himself, depending upon such chance assistance as may be available. Homesteads and fences were blotted out with appalling rapidity. Some were saved by the strenuous efforts of the owners. Cattle, horses, sheep, and domestic animals fell victims to the flames where there was no escape for them. Those settlers who were in the midst of this inferno say that the effect of the fire and the noise which accompanied this terrific work of destruction were simply indescribable. The heavens above the conflagration were overspread with a sickly yell®w hue. Within the fire zone the smoke made the air so black that it was impossible to see more than a few yards, except where the darkness was illuminated with the lurid yellow tongues of the fire fiend. The whole made a pandemonium which would require the graphic realism of a Rante to adequately picture. The fire roared like thunder, the limbs of the forest giants and the undergrowth crackled with the sharp report of musketry in continuous discharge, bullocks bellowed, sheep bleated, horses neighed in pan-ic-stricken fear, while worse than all ■were the screams of the affrighted women and children, who saw no possible escape from the merciless flames. It was an experience calculated to strike terror into the stoutest heart, and more than one demented person had to be forcibly restrained from rushing into the quick death of the surrounding conflagration.