WIDESPREAD FIRES

Hokitika Guardian, 7 January 1932, Page 5

WIDESPREAD FIRES

APPALLING EXPERIENCES. WHOLE ESTATES BURNED OUT. (Australian Press Association.) SYDNEY, January 6. Nothing so appalling a-s far as the present Western bush and grass fires has occurred in New South Wales for a long time past. Some of the largest and best-known pastoral properties in the vicinity of Bourke and Cobar have been burned out. together with hundreds of miles of fencing, also woolslieds and thousands of sheep. These losses have occurred despite the indefatigable services of local gangs and fire-fighters, who have been suffering the greatest hardships and loss of sleep.

The reports state that the lurid glare in the sky at night time is an awe-inspiring sight, as the fire rages along its four hundred mile front, sweeping through the tall dry grass, and consuming fencing, sheep and fallen timber, and leaving behind a wall of rolling smoke, which, combined with the high temperatures, is making the conditions uncomfortable in every home.

The telegraph poles have been burned in great numbers, thus interrupting telegraphic and telephone communications and preventing any liews of the ; fate of the more-isolated stations becoming ktiowtt.

Scores of the settlers, whose pasturage has all gone, are feverishly landed, on account of quarantine regu, thousands of sheep,,fwhich have been rescued from tire danger zone.

It is believed that the agistment question will finally be surmounted by the friendly co-operation of the neighbouring pastoralists along the Mac* Quarrie and the Lachlan Rivers, but the problem in reference to the burned properties is. a very serious one, as for example, the smallest holdings, those of, say, 64,009 acres, will require forty miles of new boundary fences at a- cost of about forty-five pounds sterling per mile. It is geenrally believed that the banks and probably the Government, will render immediate aid for this purpose. 2,500,009 ACRES RUINED. ANOTHER HUGE APE A IN DANGER. (Receivod this dav at 10.16 a.m.) SYDNEY, January 6. A conservative estimate based on official reports from Bourke, Wilcamiia and Cobar pastures show that the fire loss in these districts is two and a half million acres, while fresh outbreaks are menacing another one and a half million acers, while fresh rain can save.