Extensive Lupin And Grass Fire In Thornton Area

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 88, 20 January 1950, Page 4

Extensive Lupin And Grass Fire In Thornton Area

Believed to have started from neglected embers where a camping party had boiled their billy, an extensive fire swept the sandhills for a mile and a half from the Thornton Domain towards Matata yesterday. Fortunately, ’no substantial damage was done, though some fences will have suffered. Though under control, the fire was still smouldering this morning. It was about 9.30 a.m. yesterday when the fire first blazed into prominence, and farmers in the area hastily organised themselves into a fire-fighting corps to confine it to the area where it would do least harm. Their efforts, materially assisted by a bulldozer sent from Messrs Gough, Gough and Hamer’s demonstration area at Matata, kept the fire from breaking into the farmlands proper and confined it to about 300 acres of lupin and tussock on the sandhills. Residents of the locality toiled late into the night beating out the flames around the edges of the affected area. A fire break bulldozed by the machine from Matata about a mile from where the fire started almost arrested its spread, but the flames leaped the break and crept on towards the Tarawera Cut. Next move was to plough a wide break along the edge of the farmlands to stop the fire spreading inland, and that was successful. Complete control was achieved late last night. It was reported this morning that there was practically no damage of any consequence, and that most df the trees in the Thornton Domain had been saved.