FIRE PREVENTION

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 75, Issue 6441, 3 November 1947, Page 3

FIRE PREVENTION

RURAL DISTRICTS CREATED I | OUTLINE OF NEW LEGISLATION The constitution of rural fire districts each with a committee or similar authority to deal with the prevention and suppression of forest and rural fires is provided for in the Forest and Rural Fires Bill, which was introduced and read a first time in the House of Representatives last week. The Commissioner of State Forests, Mr Skinner and the Bill was long overdue and had been asked for by local bodies, farmers’ organisations and forest owners. The Bill provides for the constitution of rural fire districts. Each district shall be administered either by the Commissioner of State Forests or by a rural fire committee representing ! the owners of the land in the district. In soil conservation districts the committee shall be the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Council. Each county council shall be the fire committee or authority for that portion of the county not included in a rural fire district, soil conservation district or a State forest. It shall be the duty of every fire authority ,to promote and carry out measures for the prevention, detection, control and suppression of fires in its district. A fire officer or officers shall be appointed and they shall reside in the district throughout the whole of the closed fire-season. It shall be the function of the State Forest Service to observe weather and other conditions in order to give warning of the imminence of fire hazard conditions. When a broadcast warning is given for any particular area no person in that area shall light any fire in the open air. Any period or periods may be declared a closed fire season. An order may be issued suspending sawmilling operations during periods of fire danger. It is an offence to throw, leave or .drop any lighted match, pipe-ashes, lighted cigarette, lighted cigar, ashes from a gas producer, or other burning or smouldering substance on any land at any time and to omit before leaving the spot to extinguish the fire of the burning or smouldering substanie. A. fire authority may requisition the services of any fit male person over 18 years of age within the rural fire district or within five miles of the fire to assist in extinguishing it. A levy may be imposed on land owners to meet the ordinary requirements of a fire authority, but It shall not apply to land normally tilled or grazed 'or to any building occupied for fanning purposes. Penalties-for breaches of the provisions of the Bill are in the case of an individual imprisonment for a term not exceeding one month or a fine not exceeding £lOO, or both. If the offence is a continuing one, a further fine of £lO for each day it continues can be imposed. ”In the case of a body corporate, a fine up to £5OO is provided for with one of £5O a day for a continuing offente, , . J L