PREVENTION OF FIRE

Taupo Times, Volume II, Issue 90, 9 October 1953, Page 4

PREVENTION OF FIRE

IN the summer of 1946 a series of scrub fires in the Taupo Country burned for some weeks, several thousand acres of exotic fores were destroyed, and Taupo township itself was threatened by scrub fires within its boundaries and by the approach of others outside. At one stage several hundred men were mobilised to fight the menace, including firemen from the cities, soldiers, sailors, Forest Service officers and district residents. A central headquarters equipped with radio was set up in the town. There were nights when fire fighters were on continuous duty as fires burned toward the town and streets and buildings were lit with the red reflected glare from towering columns of flame-lit smoke. Those who saw what fire could do in the scrub country of Taupo, once it got out of control, are not likely to forget it, but those who did not experience that disastrous fire season are not likely to realise fully the danger that exists. Today much has been done to enable the danger to be dealt with, in the light of experience gained in 1946. But the vital need in connection with fire prevention is that every man, woman and child in the country should understand two things. First, that no fire may be lit in a fire district during the fire season without a permit, and second, that it is the legal duty of anyone seeing the commencement of any fire anywhere in a fire district to do all in their power to extinguish or check it, in addition to notifying the appropriate authority of the outbreak as quickly as possible.

' Special fire notices advertised in this issue of the "Times" give the' boundaries of the various fire districts into which the Taupo Country is divided, and residents outside the town will have no difficulty in noting from these the authority to whom they have to apply if a permit to burn is desired. In Taupo itself application should be made to the Chief Fire Officer, Mr P. Ford, Matipo Street, Taupo, (Telephone No. 316). The danger from "billy" fires and camp fires is often not realised by visitors. Even when lighted on beaches or bare ground, there is grave danger of fire being started long after they have served their purpose, by sparks fanned from embers by a rising wind and blown into adjoining scrub or fern. All such fires should be extinguished with care when finished with, no matter how "safe" they may appear. A frequent source of fire in the past has been the practice of throwing hot ashes out into back yards containing or near to scrub or grass. It is a legal offence to throw or drop a lighted match, pipe ashes, lighted cigarette or other burning or smouldering substance in any fire district and omit to extinguish it. It is also an offence against the Forest and Rural Fires Regulations to enter any exotic forest within a fire district without a written permit. All these offences may be met with substantial penalties, and forest authorities have emphasised that those committing them have only themselves to blame if prosecutions follow.