FOREST FIRES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 230, 27 September 1940, Page 3

FOREST FIRES.

PREVENTION MOVE.

APPEAL FOR ASSISTANCE.

WELLINGTON, Thursday.

New regulations designed to prevent forest fires are gazetted to-night. The regulations have been framed with a view to providing the utmost protection to forests consistent with as little interference as possible in the normal life of the community. The general effect in brief will be to impose on the State, as well as on owners of private forests and all neighbours and users of such forests, a mutu-1 obligation to safeguard one another's interests. In an explanatory statement, the Commissioner of State Forests, the Hon. F. Langstone, sa/s he is convinced New Zealand's present fire incidence could be reduced by at least 75 per cent with the support and co-operation of all patriotic j . .ew Zealanders, and he appeals for every possible assistance in a national campaign against forest fires. Under the new regulations forest officers are given power to enter private lauds for the suppression of fires. All engines operating in State forests or fire districts from August 1 to April 30 must be equipped with spark arresters and in addition steps must be taken for the prevention of the escape of fire and live coals from ash pans and lire boxes. Certain relaxations are granted in "respect of milking machines and shearing plants. As a further safeguard the Director of Forestry may, during periods of extreme fire danger, suspend logging or sawmilling. A further provision makes it an offence for any person to throw or drop any kind of smouldering substance in a Ctate forest or fire district from August 1 to April 30, and it has also been made an offence to enter a State forest or any exotic forest in a fire district without a permit.

Responsibility is placed on every person who works in or adjacent to a State forest or fire district or happens to be within those area.; for any purpose whatsoever to tend and control forest fires. —(Press Assn.)