AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7949, 26 January 1906, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

TERRIBLE FIRES. NUMEROUS FATALITIES. A, BRAVE SCHOOLMASTER, SEVERAL FAMILIES MISSING. v MELBOURNE, Jan. 25. A fire started at Toora, in Gipps land, on Tuesday night, to the west of the township It swept round the Hoddla Range, and devastated a stretch of timbered country, de stroying many homesteads, and burning the new Methodist Church and the State school. The flames, sweeping up the road, overtook six children named Lonsdale, whose ag«s ranged from three thirteen years, and suffocated them before their mother's eyes. The children were on their way from school, and becoming bewildered by the blazing country, and smoke, rushed towards the fire and fell. The mother managed to save the baby, while the eldest daughter, aged seventeen, was saved through getting into a creek. Groat oourage and resource was shown by tho State school teacher, j who placed eighteen children under wet blankets, and saved them all. Standing amid suffocating smoke and flames, he kept throwing wat6r over bis charges. The bridge ovei the Agnes River oaugbt fire, and is still burning. The flames leapt through the carriage windows of the midday train to Melbourne. Two more bodies have been found. Two married men named Swan and Crisp, and several families, are missing. Hundreds of people are homeless between Foster aud Welshpool Owing to the destruction of telegraph lines it id< difficult to get particulars. The fire swept the country with appalling rapidity, annihilating farmhouses, outbuildings, stock, and crops, and cutting off' in many cases avenues of escape. Settlers at Woorara West found the body of an invalid named Williams lying in the centre of the road. Two settlers were attempting to carry the man to a plaoe of safety when the fire came roaring down on them. They struggled on, their difficulties added to by the struggles of the sick man, who made a desperate fight to cave his life; but the time came when they had to abandon him and fight for their own lives. They managed to reach safety. No living thing could stand the heat unprotected. Animals dropped dead and withered before che fiery blast. Twenty men, women, and children crowded into a four-roomed house at Berry, all more or less soorohed by the heat. The death-roll at present is fourteen. THE MOST TERRIBLE FIRE EVER WITNESSED. AN AVALANCHE Ob 1 FLAME. LICKS UP FORESTS LIKE MAGIC. A TYPICAL ESCAPE. Received January 25, 1.16 a.m. MELBOURNE. Jan. 25. Old residents of South Gippsland, who have had many experiences of bush fires, describe the present outbreak as the most terrible they have ever witnessed. While not as widespread as the great fire of 1898, or as destructive of property it transcends all others in the appalling loss of life, and the awful swiftness with which it swept over the country. It rushed over farms and clearings in an avalanche of fire, flames shooting 150 feet in the air. It licked up forests of giant trees and dense scrub like magic. It was only a providential change of wind that i saved the township. Mr Clemson, President of the Shire Council, had a thrilling experience, and one typical of that of many others. He was working at some distance from his bouse, when he saw a wall of fire bearing down on bim. He rushed to his home, but the flames had hold of the household almost before the inmates could get out. Eight of them took refuge in a galvanized tank, and with tbe aid of wet blankets managed to survivo the fiery ordeal, although the stock were dropping dead with the intense heat.