FIRE SEASON DANGERS AND DUTIES

Taupo Times, Volume IV, Issue 192, 30 September 1955, Page 6

FIRE SEASON DANGERS AND DUTIES

Special fire notices appearing in this issue of the Taupo® Times, dealing with the fire season which commences tomorrow.fj Saturday, October 1, will remind many residents of town an« district of the disastrous fires which raged for several weeks iffl the summer of 1946. Several thousand acres of exotic fores® were destroyed and on a number of occasions the town itself wa3| seriously threatened. The scale of that emergency may be realised to some de- jj gree, by those who did not experience it at firsthand, from the | fact that at one stage several hundred men were mobilised afcl Taupo to fight the menace, including firemen from the citiesS soldiers, sailors, Forest Service personnel and local residents. ■ It may be stated, however, that a large proportion ofi people who visit the district in the summer, and of newer resi-l dents of the area, find difficulty in realising how seriously the j regulations prohiting the lighting of fires in the fire season mus|| be regarded. This fact is frequently demonstrated, as it was orj several occasions last summer, by the way in which newcomenH either light fires to clear sections, or fail properly to extinguffl[ camp or "billy" fires. . in What such folk do not understand is that in the Taupai area soil conditions in periods of continued dry weather are yer|| different from soil conditions elsewhere, while at such timesl humidity in the area is typically lower than in the coastal o|j§ lowei*-lying districts from which visitors come. Under the conditions mentioned fire, once started, willi creep for long distances before a light breeze or a hardly peraj ceptible air, smouldering through the tinder-drv, half-decayedl debris left on and just below the pumice surface, and until aj burst of flame is seen when a clump of scrub or other vegetatioMj is reached, the creeping trail of danger will often give so littles indication of its presence that the uninitiated may not eve|| notice it. The development of the town since 1946, and the fart|| development schemes in the neighbourhood, have reduced the^ danger, but it is to be emphasised that over thousands of acre|| outside the town, and over smaller areas within it, the fire dangefl during dry summer weather is very real. 3 For this reason, it is a vital need that everyone shouloa realise that no fire may be lit in a fire district during the firf| season without a permit, and further that anyone seeing th|| commencement of a fire anywhere in a fire district is under _aj legal duty to do all in their power to extinguish or check it, ifi addition to notifying the appropriate authority of the outbreap as quickly as possible. , , It is an offence to throw or drop a lighted match, pipftl ashes, lighted cigarette or other _ burning or smouldering subl stance in any fire district and omit to exting'uish it. Due attei3| tion to the precautions indicated by the facts cited above hasa become something of a tradition among older residents oi the| Taupo Country, the observance and strengthening of whic|| may be commended to all.