THE BUSH FIRES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 9, 29 February 1908, Page 13

THE BUSH FIRES.

IN THE TRACK OF THE BLAZE.

HOW THE BUSH SETTLER FIGHTS THE FIRE. THE HOMESTEADS OF A VALLEY SWEPT AWAY.

TAUMARUNUI, Februaiy 21. Life is made up of sharp contrasts. As I rode along the Ohakune-Raetihi road in the afternoon, a happy laughing wedding party — the ceremony over — was lined up in an orchard posing to the tender mercies of some itinerant photographer. A few miles further on families were fighting, if not exactly for dear life, for the next dearest thing—house and home —and bemoaning the loss of half their stock, and the results of years’ of energy and hopeful planning. RAETIHI ON THE QUI VIVE. “I was just off to bury my clothes and a few of my belongings, at the back of my house for fear of the fire,” explained the Raetihi chemist, who was on the point of putting out his shop light as I stepped in to purchase some plates. Flickering lanterns in sundry hack gardens, across the lights of which flitted moving forms, pointed to the fact that his example was being followed by more than one of his neighbours. “Are you Mr. Dixon? Mr. Dixon, your place is in flames! We got as far as the whare when the horses stopped and we had to come back.” These remarks were called out to me from the middle of the road by two agitated ladies on horseback. When they discovered it was a ease of mistaken identity they cantered off and left one feeling sorry for Dixon. Dropping into the barber’s shop—that centre of gossip from immemorial times—the first observation that fell on the ear came from a man at the billiard 1 table, trying to make a canon off two cushions. “Bill couldn’t get up the Valley road horses stopped dead on him, and he come back. There was a murmur of momentary sympathy as the man with the cue finished his shot. "Jehosaphat, he got the canon!” jerked out one of the onlookers, and Bill and his sorry plight were forgotten. But they say Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Coming along to the boardinghouse one’s attention was arrested at the corner by a huge trench, twenty feet long, five wide, and about the same deep. Boards were laid along the bottom and the new earth was heaped up at the side. “They’ve all got ’em,” remarked my guide, “ready for their Lares and Penates when the first spark catches.” These incidents and snatches of conversation are more graphic, than columns of description, of the state of mind of Raetihi just now. NATURE’S PYROTECHNICS. Raetihi township was virgin bush a few years ago. To-day it is still surrounded by the forest, and most of the sections right up to the main street are still strewn with the trunks of the felled timber, now as dry as tinder. The place is full of smoke, and every second man you meet is rubbing his half-blinded eyes. The township is within a ring of fire. It was calm all the day I arrived, but a south-west wind came up at sun-down and the sparks were holding high carnival. Away to the south and west there is a bank of thick smoke coming up over the heavy green bush, which is just indicated here and there by some stray tree top which has caught fire. Tn the north and east, where more clearing has been done, the scene is awful in its grandeur. It should be moonlight, but the moon has got lost in the smoke, and the stars are too timid to show themselves, so that the night is jet black. Emerson in one of hie essays speaks of a beautiful thought of a friend of his, who said that on going through a forest it always seemed as though the fairies stopped and waited In silence till mortals passed through before restrming their frolics. There is no suggestion of this hushed waiting in the forest at this fiery time. The fiends have broken loose, and “About, about. In reel and rout. The death fires dance at night.’’ In the day you see really very Utile

fire —it seems all smoke. At night, against the blackened hillsides round the township, every spark and flicker is vividly visible. It is a phantasmagoria of flame, a kaleidoscope of lights. The top of a solitary tree on yonder hill burns high in the heavens, steadily and solitary like Tiritiri light, seen from across the gulf. Other lights wink in and out like Rangitoto beacon. On the hill to the left they run up in regular lines—like looking over Auckland city up Graftonroad way from the harbour, with a big cluster on the ridge for the hospital. Here they form a fairy ring; there the watch fires of an army sleeping under arms on the eve of battle; while further off there is a splutter like fireworks as the wind rushes up a gully. Away on the right is a tree and all its branches perfectly outlined', in fire. It burns steadily, then the branches drop off one by one, till all is darkness, and it brings to mind - the solemn midnight Tenebrae service in the Church of Rome, on the vigil of Good Friday, where the altar candles, representing the apostles, go out one by one. A gust of wind, a turn of the kaleidoscope, and the scene is transformed into a dance of devils. It is magnificent and wonderful, but uncomfortably near, and no wonder that Raetihi sleeps lightly to-night. Later on the fire got into the Recreation Ground literally at the township’s back door, and people were up all through the long night watching and waiting and fighting with the flames. THE FRINGE OF IT. In the saddle again soon after daylight, and off into the centre of the district where the settlers have suffered most severely. This is about an hour or two’s ride from Raetihi, along the Ohura and Pukekaha-roads, in a north-westerly direction from the township. Mr. G. Goldsworthy, Messrs. Hatrick’s popular traveller, has been all up and down the burned area, and he says he has seen nothing to equal this part. Strangely enough, the first man one met on the Ohura-road, about two miles from Raetihi, was Mr. Dixon, who had just been looking at his heap of ruins. He reckons his loss at 400 sheep and 300 acres of grass burned. His neighbour, Mr. G. Berry, stands to lose about the same amount of grass and nearly three-quarters of his stock. The house was only saved by a night’s unremitting toil—which was shared by several good-hearted neighbours — extintinguishing the fires with water and sticks as soon as a spark found its billet. The front garden was strewn with a miscellaneous collection of household fixings, and a big mound, freshly made, marked the resting-place of the valuables. Two red-eyed children, almost blinded with the smoke, were keeping guard and beating out the sparks which fell from time to time from the burning bush a few chains away. EIGHT HOURS IN A CULVERT. Turning up the Pipipi-road, one’s horse ehied at the remnants of somebody’s home, dumped down in the middle of the road—a sewing machine covered with a eheet of galvanised iron held down with a tin trunk of clothes —a mute but eloquent evidence of a pretty general clear out. At the end of this road is Mr Davis' place. He and his daughter had a terrible time. They were sitting down to dinner when the warning came, and they hardly had time to get out of the house before the standing bush a few chains from the house was a wall of flame. They and a neighbour, Mrs. Coutts, who was burned right out, just managed to race along the road about a-quarter of a mile and find refuge in a big culvert when the flames followed them and literally enveloped the whole of the neighbourhood. Though safe, their troubles were not over. The smoke came through the culvert (which is big enough for a man to walk in) as through a chimney, and it was only by bathing their faces continually in the water running under their feet that they were able to bear the awful pain. They were in this terrible plight for nearly eight hours, and were

only rescued after dark. Oddly enough the Davis* House was not. burned, although the adjacent woolshed, haystack, fencing, and other buildings were reduced to ashes. It did catch, but was saved in a most strange manner. The morning before the blaze ;.n old tin had been filled with water, and some paint brushes were put in to soak. A spark fell near the porch and burnt the wood on which the pot was standing. It capsized, the water extinguished the flames, and saved the house. A kick of a cow is said to have burned Chicago, and an equally trivial thing can put a fire out. A tree and a yard or two of paling fence indicate what was once the home of Mr. Harris, whose boundary joins Mr. Davis. Half-a-mile further on the road drops down into the beautiful Orautoha Gorge, several hundred feet deep, and clothed with glorious bush now unfortunately horribly scorched and full of great black gaps where the fire has run through it. Turning out of the countless bends which the road takes as it winds its way to the bottom the traveller comes on four tyres, a few bolts and some ironwork — all that remains of a waggon which was caught by the fire and simply burned in its tracks. THE VALLEY OF ASHES. But it is not till one gets to the Puke-kaha-road, which trends away to the right from near the bottom of the gorge, that he realises the full force of last week’s blaze. This was the storm centre of that awful day of death and destruction. Passing tnrough a gate you come to a stream which it requires but little imagination to turn into the Styx, and you half expeet to see old Charon and his boat come out of the gloom to ferry you over to the underworld, as you pull up at- its edge and peer through the smoke at the scene of desolation beyond. The Pukekaha beggars description. The valley is full of thin blue smoke which half reveals the countless spurs which make up its contour. There is no sky line, and the hazy smoke has blotted out all idea of distance and perspective. Far aS the eye can penetrate ahead, far as you can see on either hand, there is nothing but blackened hillsides from which the charred tree trunks rise like a forest of masts, and over the ground the logs lie on the thick ash-covered earth. There isn’t a blade of grass to be found- with a microscope. The only relief to this utter, utter, desolation is the white ribbon of road which winds up and up, and along it you meet a stray sheep or two, a cow and a few horses, all half dazed and homeless, and looking for a bite in an inhospitable land. Logs, stumps, and tall branchless dead trees are yet full of latent tire, and give off wreathing smoke. As the fire eats into the roots of the trunks, standing sentinel-like, they crash to earth with a roar and rattle as they splinter into a million pieces. Every few chains they have come down across the road, and been cleared away with much trouble, and you eye with suspicion some crackling monster leaning over at a perilous angle as you ride along almost underneath it. At the foot of the road stands Mr. T. Austin’s little one-roomed house, which, marvellous to relate, was not touched. When you see it nestling in the centre of acres of ash and cinder strewn hills you say "a miracle.” On the top of the range the south-east wind, which fanned the flames to fury blew with hurricane force down the countless gullies, but here at the bottom there seems to have been a providential lull. Sixteen people found a camp of refuge at Austin’s, one of them being an invalid, and the recital of their dash from the burning reads like a page out of “The Last Days of Pompeii.” A MARK TAPLEY TOUCH. At the summit Mr. George Cox had one of the most comfortable homes in the district, and his garden was a byeword for miles around. Fruit and vegetables of all kinds, all grown from seed, flourished in this out of the way corner of the Island, and all was fresh and charming. To-day a pile of white ashes represents the house, and the garden is a burnt patch, four square. Near by, a few sheets Of corrugated iron knocked up in the form of a rough shack, and a small tent, house the Cox family and the few things they saved. In spite of their trouble the cardinal virtue of the out-settler —hospitality—conies out at once, and “('orue inside and have a cup of tea, the kettle is just on the boil.

is the greeting to the stranger. Mrs. Cox laughed as she waved her hand in the direction of the corrugated iron contraption. By stooping one got in with difficulty, and accepted the proffered chair—the only one rescued. A sewing machine and a piano, with a small but miscellaneous collection from the kitchen, occupied one side, and some miscellaneous cooking utensils filled in the gaps. “Yes, an dwe had a tune on it last night,” remarked the hostess as she caught my eye taking stock of the piano, which, to say the least of it, looked somewhat incongruous in its present setting. Nothing can daunt these hardy pioneers. Instead of sitting down wailing about unkind fate they made shift with what was left, and were as happy as Larry. The only thing that made them sorrowful was the sufferings of the stock. "It will be a terrible struggle for a time,” agreed Mr. Cox with a philoso-

phical air. "but it has cleared a wonderful lot of land, and though it means resowing our grass, we will be reaping the benefit in a few years.” WHEN THE FIRE CAME. It was somewhere about three o’clock in the afternoon that the news went down the valley that the fire was coming. Young Mr. Cox and his sister

were the only ones at home at the time, but with the help of the Gosnells (their neighbours), and Mr. Cartwright, the piano was bundled out, covered with some rugs, etc., over which earth was heaped, and some household goods were J uried in the garden. You may be sure the selection was not very methodical. Down came the flames on the wings of the wind, a wall of fire reaching to the sky, and roaring like tlie sea on a rocky coast. As soon as the hurried work was at an end everybody made tracks down the valley, and there was a huddled group of refugees at Mr. Austin’s section. So quickly did the fiery element lick up everything in its path that within half an hour of the time they got the warning Cox’s homestead was a smoking ruin. But listen to the vagaries of the fiend. 'l’he house was the only building with an iron roof, and not a square inch of timber- was left of it. Twenty yards away stood a pataka (a sort of Maori store house, built high off the ground), made of wooden slabs with a shingle roof. There was not even a splinter touched by fire. Twenty yards away again everything was cleaned right out, down to the smallest blade of grass. One could multiply this instance a score of times.

FATE OF THE STOCK. Two motherless calves were all that Mr. Cox found left of his cattle, and near by was a scared looking horse, -with half its face and two hind feet badly burned. Of his flock of sheep only 25 were mustered. Walking across some of the blackened paddocks (still smouldering) of Mr. Cox’s 200 acre section, one came upon the charred remains of sev-

eral of the cattle, which had been unable to work their way out of the thick growth, and the frightfully contorted positions in which they were discovered told of the agonies the poor beasts must have suffered before the end came. Ui the missing sheep not a vestige remained. The stench was awful, and one turned from the sickening sight with relief.

THE NEIGHBOUR'S FATE. Across the road, Mrs. Gosnell, quite a young woman, with a small family, was also living in a tin shelter run up near the ash strewn fireplace—all that remained of the home. Mr. Gosnell mustered three sheep out of his flock, and, like all the Pukekaha people, practically stands to-day where he started. Mr. Austin counted 25 sheep instead of six times that number; and so the story is repeated all up the valley. I tried to push through to Mr. Todd's place at the end of the Pukekaha road, across the ridge, and along to the two Messrs. Motion's sections, but the roads, which here dwindle down to bridle tracks on the side of steep hills covered with burning and smouldering logs, were quite impassable owing to great trees which lay across the way, and I had to turn back. The places mentioned are all burned out, and their story is much the same as that of their neighbours. Calling on Mr. Austin on the way back one found him busy unearthing some eatables from his cache, and as he looked round at his smoking acres he said he was going to let the rest of his valuables remain there till things looked more settled. SMOKE BLIND FOR TWO DAYS. A few hundred yards past the junction, on tile Ohura-road lives Mr. Connolly, whose woolshed was burned, and who lost considerable stock. He and his household took refuge in a good sized stream with high banks, which runs through the section. Even here they were not safe, and frequently their clothing caught fire from the sparks, and it was only by dashing water on one another that they escaped with their lives. The little girl Cora, about seven or eight years of age, suffered frightfully. They were in the creek for about six hours —till the fire abated somewhat after dark—and it is no wonder that the little child and h >r mother

The worldly goods and chattels of Mr. and Mrs. Coutts, a young couple, lie under the heap of earth on which one of the settlers is placing a lamp and teapot. The fire swept over the place, and Mrs. Coutts saved herself by hiding in a culvert.

Fire and smoke surrounded Timber Mill near Ohakune, on the Raetihi road, which only escaped by a hair’s breadth.

were smoke-blind and quite helpless for a couple of days after. “We were lying there,” said the mother, pointing to the floor, “and could do nothing for ourselves, but thank God, good neighbours were not wanting.” Child-like, Cora has come pet puppies, and insisted on taking them into the creek with her, and they are still waddling about happy and fat. NOBLE SOULS. Her mother’s remark about the goodhearted neighbours is the thing that strikes one most of all in this valley of gloom. It is impossible to speak adequately of the noble way in which everybody helps everybody else. It is not done in the hope of reward or thanks. It is second nature with them, and one feels proud to know such people. To go on with the sad story of places one visited would be repetition. There are nearly a score of homes where the fire has caused ruin and desolation, and all the people one talks to seem to be of the one opinion that the only thing to be done is for the Government to at least come to the assistance of the settlers with grass seed. It will cost something like 10/ an acre for seed, with perhaps another 7/6 for sowing; and even if they do get some help, the struggle will be hard enough. Stock has to be bought and fences have to be put to rights, and new homes to be built. FIRES EVERYWHERE. Riding back that afternoon I found the families on the Ohura-road still on

the qui vive. Matters at Raetihi had quietened down, but there was fresh trouble on the Raetihi-Ohakune road. A strong breeze from the south-east had carried the fire into bush that had not a spark in it the day before, and one passed half a dozen sections where men, women, and children were fighting for their homes. For the last mile it was a most exciting ride, through sufi'ocating smoke, with the fire on either hand, and at one place the corduroy road itself had caught alight. After passing through this blaze, and just at the end of the road before you turn to the left to enter Ohakune, the hazy smoke lifted, right ahead, and revealed the snow-capped summit of Ruapehu, which had been invisible for a week. It was only for a moment that the vision appeared, and here you are so close to the mountain that it seemed to loom up right in front of one’s horse. That line of Shakespeare's, “Can a man hold fire in his hand by thinking on the lofty Caucasus?” flashed to the memory. Possibly not, but that glimpse of snowy Ruapehu up in the clouds was a soothing sight for tingling eyes that had been peering through pungent smoke all day. Since leaving Taumarunui last Monday I had not seen blue sky till to-day, when the coaeh neared the Waimarino station on the north-end of the Main Trunk line, and then saw the first burst of sunlight that was not filtered through yellow smoke. This will give some idea of the conditions under which they live in the country where bush fires are raging. And the danger is not over yet. Till the rain comes the bush settler must keep guard. The fires are all round him.

Mr. T. Austin and the earth shelter hastily thrown up to house the sixteen people who took refuge on his section.

The camera had not the slightest terrors for this cow. nor the usually timid sheep, which were evidently too tired, hungry and dazed to worry much about anything except finding a resting spot that did not burn and smoke.

The lad, who is on his way to the factory, has just driven through the fire raging on both sides at the corner of Ohura Road, a few miles out of Raetihi Road. The burnt bush is faintly visible through the smoke in the back ground. Mr. Dixon's whare, which was burnt out, was near this spot on the left hand side.

Mr. James Gosnell, the owner of this homestead on the I’ukekaha-road, could only muster three sheep: and* hke everybody else in the valley, had all his grass burnt oil. The photograph give* a very good illustration of the vagaries of the tire whic h demolished the iron-roofed house ami left untouehed the wotslen pataka (store-house) standing just alongside.