Fighting Fires

The Drama Of Fighting Fires

People write books about th darndest things which sometime against all reason, turn out to h interesting. (( Fire is Their Enemy an account of fire-fighting through th ages, by Charles Roetter, is a ca. in point. It is fascinating readir not only for fire-bugs but for genen interest as well.

ALTHOUGH the author is Englisl his account of famous fires an the human element that led up t them, covers those in many countrie In a sense it is an encyclopaedia o famous fires: The Great Fire of 166 which, alleged to have started i Farynor’s bakery, destroyed fivr sixths of London in a four-da holocaust; the Chicago fire of 187 for which Mrs. O’Leary’s cow tab the traditional blame, which rendere half the population of the city hom< less in the first 24 hours; fires th; followed the San Francisco and Toki earthquakes and the London Blit and the Black Friday fire of Januan 13, 1939, in which, in the worr bushfire Australia has known, 7\ people lost their lives.

Hundreds of houses and million of acres of forest and land wen burnt out at that Victorian fire an the author recalls how the men o the little Victorian hill town o Noojee fought to save it as long s possible and then, at the last momenr made for the creek where thei; families were already.

“In the meantime,” he says, “thei; women had deposited their families savings, the title deeds to their propei; ties and other valuables at the locs post office. The postmistress calmll wrote out receipts and put each iten carefully away in the safe. Shd continued with her job until the po?< office caught fire and then found timn to tap out a last message to thd outside world on her telegraph: T an about to close down now as thd flames are licking the building, have locked the valuables in the safi and I’m going to the creek. If thd worst comes to the worst, you wri find the keys of the safe and thd office strapped to my wrist.’ ”

“She survived and was awardee the OBE.” (FIRE IS THEIR ENEMY. Publishes by Angus and Robertson Ltd. 27/6.) i