FIGHT WITH FIRE

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 29, 4 February 1932, Page 13

FIGHT WITH FIRE

PASTURES ABLAZE

DAMfAGE AT ROLLESTON

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

CHKIBXCHtfKCH, 3rd Februaiy

Over 2000 acres of pastuie and scrub, about a score of sheep, 600 acres of ■young pines, a few-corn stacks, and three sniull huts wcro destioyed by a fire which broke out at BollestonHall to-day, and which had spread a distance of three miles toward Springston before it could be got under control by hundreds of fire-fighters who wciecalled from all over the district;

Only strenuous efforts and. an occasional foitunato lull m tho high noi '• wester which fanned the flames saved the whole of a valuable cropping area toward' Lincoln, Springston, and Springston South from being lavaged. Kinnois in the>distiict who have suffeicd fiom the fire state that it was the woist smee; tho disastrous outbreak thiity-fivo years ago. Farm houses were saved miraculously from flames which raced across parched paddocks. Stock had tp be rushed into ploughed paddocks for safety. The same expedient was resorted to by farmers- owning, motor-cars,* although one farmer who made for the open road with his car had1 to abandon it and lush back' to his house;to save it from tho flames. He lost his motor-car when the fire leaped across the road with a jump of fully a chain.

-The,;fire .started, suddenly at 11.30 a,m. iiear the; South road, and spread over a fairly'^yide' area with such rapidity that before it was noticed the hold it hadgained was too great, and it could not be stopped. '; j ' ' . Fire-fighters from" all iover the country and from Christchurch were summoned , to.^ assist in keeping the flames from .'homesteads;'; They concentrated their efforts on saving.homesteads, and although: several were threatened. none were daihaged. ; ./.■';■ ;■.-;'." .'.-',■' ,-,'.'.;--!. -.Twelve "^heepi; were' ; burned;to, death, and about twenty mor^ were so scorched that thejr' 1 will probably die. f Had .it.iiot'been for the .aimy'.of men'available to fight the fire it would have' reached ;rieher,and 'more .closely--settled cquntry,; where the danger; would, have-been grave. \ The townships of; Springston,-Spririgston: South, and Lincoln would have.been threatened in this area-and the. fire; might have been a serious'disaster^- ■•' ■,"••* - ■