FIRES IN RESERVES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 May 1938, Page 8

FIRES IN RESERVES

TRAMPERS OFFEND. SEVERAL YOUNG MEN FINED. The lighting of fires in the State Forest Reserve in the Tararua Ranges op January 22 was followed by the prosecution of a number of young men before Mr W. F. Stilwell, 'S.M., in the Magistrates’ Court, Wellington, yesterday. Charges of delivering and procuring firearms without permits and of hunting animals in the forest were also brought. For lighting fires in the reserve, Raymond George Corser and Edward Robert Griffiths Wallis were each fined £5 and costs, and they were convicted and ordered to pay costs on a joint charge of hunting deer. Wallis was fined £1 for procuring a firearm without a permit. Keith Brooke-Tay-lor, optical mechanic, was fined £5 for lighting a fire and £1 for procuring a firearm without a permit. For delivering or procuring a firearm without a permit, Rex Brooke-Taylor, clerk, James lan Johnston and Desmond George Finlay were each fined £1 and costs.

About January 23 a serious fire occurred in the Tararua Ranges, causing considerable damage to the bush, said Sub-Inspector A. D. McLean. The young men who had pleaded guilty were in the habit of visiting the locality on tramping trips. Rex BrookeTaylor lent a rifle to Keith without a permit, a breach of the Arms Act, and Finlay lent his rifle to Wallis. Johnston lent a rifle to a man named Dougall, who had since left for England. In the course of their tramp the young men lit fires, but there was no evidence to show that the major fire was caused by them.

The magistrate said the matter of lighting fires in a forest reserve was one which had given him the greatest concern, because the penalty was fixed at £5O. The areas were prohibited so that damage would not be caused. Defendants had run the risk of causing a grave conflagration.