FIRE AND EROSION

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20057, 2 October 1939, Page 5

FIRE AND EROSION

DOMINION’S FORESTS OPENING OUTBREAK

STATE SERVICE WARNING

(Special to the Herald.) WELLINGTON, this day. Rumours of occasional fires in various country districts have been reaching the Forest Service during the last week, and the receipt of the first formal report of a fire in the Tongariro National Park district serves to emphasise the necessity for a special appeal in respect to the prevention and control of fires during spring. Unfortunately, it is not as yet gen- ! eraliy realised that during the early , spring, especially following a severe winter, fires spread just as rapidly and just as ruinously as they will do during the driest autumn. At this period violent, drying winds are often prevalent, with frequently a few grouped dry but cold days making ideal conditions for a disastrous fire in the previous summer’s growth of grass, fern, and blackberry, which has been killed by winter snows and frosts. This material will dry out in a single day of drying wind to the inflammability of tinder. It is this tinder which abuts so frequently upon forests of the Dominion and although the actual spread of a fire into a forest itself may only be a few yards on each occasion that a fire occurs, the accumulative effect over a long period is enormous, whilst in addition, much second gx-owth which might spring up around the edges of the forest and act as a nursery for future crops of commercial species is prevented from developing. The national losses incurred through indiscriminate and uncontrolled rural burning cannot be over-emphasised. It is not alone the losses of ripe and available timber ready for sawmilling, nor yet again the loss of seedling and sapling trees amid second-growth which matters. It is the subsequent loss of top-soil and even sub-soil from eroding hill-faces which arc being constantly burned. Fire is the root cause of erosion and the Forest Service, therefore, makes an earnest appeal for the utmost caution in the handling of fires at this period of the year, and for the cooperation of every section of the community in a national crusade against fire. A close and well organised scheme of co-operation is being effected amongst all departments of the Government and other interested organisations.