BUSH FIRES

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XIX, Issue 1780, 8 January 1886, Page 2

BUSH FIRES

THE PABCHED STATE OP THE COUNTRY. SUFFERINGS OF SETTLERS THROUGH BUSH FIRES. GRAIN, HAY. HOUSES. FENCES, Ac.. BURNED. ORMONDVILLE IN DANGER AND WITHOUT WATER. HOUSEHOLD GOODS PLACED ON RAILWAY TRUCES. THE TOWNSHIP OF STRATFORD ON FIRE. TWENTY-NINE HOUSES REPORTED BURNT. HOMELESS FAMILIES.

It seems that the Maoris were not far out in their prediction that the summer would be a dry one. Indeed the weather has been more than dry. Wednesday was a " smoking hot ” day, the glass registering 190 degrees in the sun and 82 degrees in the shade in Greytown, while in Masterton it is said to have been higher. The whole country is parched for want of rain, and grass, grain, tress, shrubs and flowers are suffering considerably. Grass and bush fires have been raging in all parts of the colony and the news <4 property and dwellings destroyed is alarming. Speaking of the fires which have occurred in the country between Woodville and Napier, the Examiner says:—" The New Tsar has brought with it a sad time to many of our enterprising bush settlers. But a few milss away destructive fires have been experienced, la a centre where many a brave man has hews out in tbs bush—driven there by the monopoly of the grand open country of Hawke’s Bay—a home for himself and bis family, destructive first have raged. Settlers ate net only homeless, but they have lost their all in the shape of stock and produce. Sad is the news to those who bear it, removed from the scene of disaster, but sadder still to those who have lost their little all—the results of years of hard and unarm pathetic toil. Thei; fences have been burned, their grazing fields scorched hare, their season’s hay about to be gathered in for the winter’s feed for their stock has been destroyed, their stock has in many oases been destroyed or lost, and the scene presented is probably the saddest experienced in our midst.” The same may be said for other parts of the colony.

During the last two or three days the atmosphere in the Wairarapa hu been e barged with smoke through which the son shone with a strange orange color. On every hand the bush appeared to be on fire, and men have been laboring bard to prevent destruction <4 property. At Masterton it was denned necessary to send out the fire bngade to put out a bash fire which threatened the town. A large fire, burning between the Upper Plain and Waingawa caused considerable alarm to tbs residents at the Mansis and Enrupnni end et that town. Firee were alto raging at the Mnngapakeha Swamp and at tbs Tuan, when the hotel was covered with wet blankets and the bridge was in great danger. At Ormondville a committee was appointed to ascertain the damage done and at tar as received the figures are as followsNoraswood, £2OOO ; Danish Line, £1216 ; German Lins, £1126; Makotoko-Ormondville Boad, £l5O. Tbe total losses in tbie quarter are thus between £BOOO and £9OOO.

Latest telegrams from tbe bush state that tbe fire has spread to tbe back of Ormondville and tie township is in imminent danger ; indeed nothing can save it if the wind neat. Fortunately now it is dead calm. It would be no use sending up tbe fire engine, as no water (is available. The inhabitants hayn removed ’all their goods and chattels to railway trucks, and an engine remains with ■team u p to cany thorn to a place oI safety if tbe town catches fire.

A telegram received yesterday atataa that » both fire which had been raging mk flint* ford (a townibip about midway hatwan Hawera aod Mew Plymeatb) (wept into that lownahip the afternoon before, about Bor 4 o’clock, and did great damage. The complete particular! are not vet to hand, bnt felly li familiea have been left homcleea. When the train lor Hawera armed at Btratford, the fin waa burning fiercely, iwd 30 or BO went and children ware put into the train and brought to Hawera, all leering their bnabanda behind to battle with the lira, and aena haring become aeparated from their children. Late in the evening a (pedal train waa cent up and brought more people down. The bnt and emoke were terrific.

A later telegram raporta that 29 honaaa am burned at Stratford, including the Tows Hall, bnt that the public oflicoa, principal atorea, and the hotel, are aarad, haring, however, been more or leas injured. The railway bridge ia charred bnt not deetroyed. The exceptionally dry aeaaon and the aoaroity of water, chonld make people par* tieularly cautious in the use of matebea and pipea.

Speaking of the dry weather, the N. Z. Time* says ; —lt does not merely inflict formidable if not irreparable injury on the crops and the feed, thence on the stock, and by consequence on all branches and developments of the Pastoral and Agricultural industries, but it also, paradoxical as this may seem, lays the foundation of a future destructive flood. Long droughts nearly always break up in the end with a heavy downpour, and when the ground has everywhere been undergoing for months a course of baking into the consistency of firebrick it is very slowly permeated by falling rain. On the contrary,! the tendency is to keep the water on the surface and cause it to rush oil by everv available channel to the nearest stream or rivet , thus caosing sudden and devastating inundations which are escaped in wet seasons, because when the ground is wet and rainfall percolates downwards much more freely, and so flows away gradually without producing much flooding. If the drought lasts much longer, and indeed in any case we must be prepared—country settlers in in particular—for some sudden and higher floods after the first heavy and continuous rainfall. The prospects of the crop are, we fear, very precarious over most of the Colony and in some parts the grain crops are ruined beyond redemption. The grass hu also suffered so severely through lack of moisture that a serious shortness of feed ia impending in several districts, aod this again must react upon the meat industries, while the ratlwav revenue wiil lose so much produce traffic. Altogether, the drought is a public misfortune, and it is to be hoped that abundent rains may be experienced ere long.