MILES OF FLAMES.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 December 1921, Page 3

MILES OF FLAMES.

AUSTRALIAN BUSH FIRES. SETTLERS’ GALLANT FIGHT. Sydney, Dec. 21. Bush fires have been devastating some of the richest of the western districts of New South Wales for over a week, and the fire zone now embraces an area of about 80,000 acres. This is bounded by walls of flame over 100 miles long. Inside this area men have been fighting day and night, battling with the roaring flames, which made a glare on which the eyes could not look at close quarters. Nevertheless hundreds of men, with bowed heads and bloodshot eyes, with faces begrimed and with weary limbs, have been struggling in an endeavor to save many valuable properties, and the lives of thousands of stock. In connection with the fighting of the fires there are many stories of brave, sometimes recklessly brave, and unselfish deed®.

One young man, a worker on the DubboMolong line, dashed through a high wall of flame a hundred yards deep, after drenching his clothes. His purpose was to save the woolshed on Killaloola, to which a thin, red line of fire was approaching through a strip of unburnt grass. He accomplished what seemed the impossible, and saved the building. When he returned he was cheered, and his bravery is to be recognised. In another case a selector’s son, without assistance and with the continuous menace of being cut off from means of escape, fought the flames from approaching his father’s property for 72 hours on end. He was on the point of collapse from sheer exhaustion when relief arrived.