CIGARETTES ARE DANGER ON ROADS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18062, 24 January 1927, Page 12

CIGARETTES ARE DANGER ON ROADS.

LIGHTED BUTTS MENACE BOARDS PLANTATIONS. Afr R. G. Robinson, the Selwyn Plantation Board’s superintendent, at today’s meeting of the board expressed a hope that motorists and others who trax-el along roads near plantations will, during the next few weeks, exercise great care in regard to throwing away lighted cigarette-butts and xvax matches, as the margins of road lines now are in a very inflammable condition. On Janury 20. a fire broke out at the northern end of the untenanted Turnbull’s plantation, Burnham. It passed over, in the form of a surface fire, about forty acres of diseased gum plantation. Little or no damage was done to the healthv trees, and the clearance of semi-dead timber anticipated during the coming season will be facilitated by the burning off of the rubbish. To prex*ent the spread of fire south, backfiring xvas resorted to. and the old fences were demolished, with good results. The burning of gorse fences, Mr Robinson explains, will obxiate the necessity for undertaking this work this year, when a standard wire fence is being constructed. As the plantation fence is onlv a few feet from the railwav line, he thinks that a lighted cigarette-butt or a xvax match probable xvas thrown by’ the prevailing nor’-wester into the plantation or the hedge, where conditions are favourable for a fire. The board approved of the report.