FIRE AND LITTER

Taupo Times, Volume I, Issue 4, 6 February 1952, Page 4

FIRE AND LITTER

lt shouid not require the radio warnings by the State Forest Service to remind the people in the Taupo country of fire risks at this season of the year., Even those with short memories do not have to stretch them very far back to recall the narrow escape Taupo township itself had from being reduced to a heap of cinders. Weather conditions at present render it necessary to be extremely careful. The hot dry spell, coupied with high winds have intensified the danger of an outbreak that might be very difficult to control. The National Park area has already provided a warning in season. High temperatures in Australia have resulted in widespread conflagrations which on the aggregate of losses have assumed the dimensions of a national disaster. In the Taupo country the responsibility for exercising care is particularly important. The State forests in this area are rising in value annually with the^ growth of the trees in the various * plantations. They are now a rich asset. A single act of carelessness could depreciate the value of that asset by hundreds of thousands of pounds. It could conceivably destroy human habitations and human iives. A glowing match, a cigarette butt, the embers from a pipe or a picnic fire, need but a puff of wind to fan the flames that could destroy a forest. Past experience and the mounting value of our forest assets have contributed to a growing public and official awareness of the ever-present fire risk. There is now a well organised system under the control of the Forest Service for fire watching and fire fighting. But with all that, there remains the fallibility of human beings; the constant menace behind a thoughtless or careless act. There is one aspect of the question that deserves more systematic attention than it has hitherto received. It is the disposal of litter. We were told the other day the impressions of a visitor to the Ara- ' tiatia Rapids. , These were chiefly two. 1 One was the thrilling spectacle of the ' rapids; the other was the litter of paper, '

cigarette -packets, fruit peelings, empty tins and bottles that marked the trail of various picnic parties. It is a fact of which there can be seen plenty of evidence of everywhere in New Zealand as well as in Taupo that people in a great many instances — too many — are apt to be untidy about their litter. The cure for this public nuisance is systematic trair.ing, in the school as well as in the home. In certain European countries — Germany and Scandinavia especially — it is an offence, punishable on the spot by a fine imposed by a poiiceman on the beat, to drop any kind of litter in the street. Just imagine the revenue that would roll into the State coffers in this country were a similar system of discipline introduced overnight. Litter, moreover, is not only untidy. It is a definite fire risk. A Railways Department investigation some years ago into the incidence of grass fires along the permanent way established the fact that the refraction of the sun's rays from empty tins and bottles thrown from the trains could set inflamrhable material alight just as easily as cinders from an engine. It is obvious that a similar risk attaches to litter scattered in the vicinity of a forest area. ihe moral is to be tidy as well as careful.