SERIOUS BUSH FIRES

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 126, 25 February 1928, Page 28

SERIOUS BUSH FIRES

SETTLERS’ HOMES ENDANGERED. B Tm/muA-y « New Plymouth, February 23. A “Taranaki lieraid” reporter travelling in the Ohura district reports that serious bush fires there have swept thousands of acres, endangering settlers’ houses ami sawmills, which were only saved by tremendous exertions on the part both of men and women. One sawmill lost a considerable quantity of sawn timber. Many sheep have been lost, and much of the country will have to be resown. ALARM IN BACKBLOCKS. BV Telegeaph.—Press ussociation. Tauntaruntii, February 23. In the Ohura district fires are burning for fully five miles along the road towards Waitaanga. Yesterday Dlr. Thomas Shepherd’s mill, Waitaanga, was in danger and settlers and mill hands worked hard all day pumping water from the creek and saturated the land in the vicinity of the mill. The light continued until midnight. .Mr. Shepherd estimates that he lost 50,000 ft. of sawn timber, valued at £750. A wliare was burned, but the school nearby and Mr. Shepherd’s house were saved. Messrs. Collms and Boisen, two farmers, estimate their loss at twenty and thirty sheep respectively. A large area of country is now burning, causing alarm in the backblocks.