FIRE IN TARARUAS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 47, 24 January 1938, Page 9

FIRE IN TARARUAS.

RAIN QUENCHES FLAMES. DAMAGE TO BUSH. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Jan, 23. Originating on Friday night in the Southern Tararua mountains, the forest fire was swept by Saturday’s high north-westerly wind through some thousands of acres of native bush before a fortunate change in the wind which brought heavy rain with it quenched the flames. This morning a party of Tararua Tramping Club members, bound for the Tauherenikau hut to do some work to prevent the Tauherenikau River from scouring the ground from under the hut, diverted their attention to fighting the flames which might threaten the building. The onset- of the rain was most fortunate, because it was the first for weeks. The bush was very dry, and dry moss festooning the trees carried the fire like a. fuse so that it ran through the forest until it came to an inflammable tree, when it would burst out at the top for the sparks to be carried by the gale even further ahead. The fire-fighters realised that they could not extinguish the flames, but hoped to divert them from the huts and from parts of the forest. The fire apparently started at -a camp fire on the Marchant Track, which leads up Marchant Ridge and is one of the main routes into the range. The is practicallv the boundary of the Wellington Water Board’s propertv and the State Forest Reserve, which _ embraces the valley of the Tauherenikau. To-dnv it was reported that the Water Board had not lost a great deal of bush, thanks to the rain and the efforts of the Tararua Tramping Club.