Peat Fires

"Smoky Hollow", Puketaha R.D.
Hamilton.
27/J/36.

Dear Flora,
Well you might call Gordonton "Smoky hollow". With peat fires burning at Rukahia, and Ruakura, Orini and Whitikahu and of course down Piako road and right next door too, the air is heavy with horrible smell of peat. The sun sets with a red glow in the sky that is both menacing and depressing, and it rises on a grey fog that never seems to lift completely.  Ever since October, when one of the farmers about three miles West of our farm, lit the bracken and gorse on his property, we had feared we would have to fight the fires. Peat fires.
When we returned from our holiday at your place on January 17th, we found that we were forced to patrol Lake Drain, the boundary between our grass-lands and the scrub and blackberries and rushes that extend towards Horsham Downs nnd  Lake Tunawakapeke. For nearly four months the fires had been eating their way towards us.
Before dinner on the 22nd., father went to the drain and reported that it had not been crossed yet, but at 2 o'clock he said to rne, "I think you had better go and have a look at the fires. I don't like the look of the smoke at all."
Nor did I. Great brown belches rolled up, hanging close over the lower part of our farm. They filled me with foreboding. Dropping what I was doing, I caught my pony and set out for the drain. She seemed to sense where we were going, perhaps becnuse "going the rounds" was almost the only job she had had since our holiday.
As I approched the drain paddock, my  heart nearly stood still. The flames had not crossed beside the Jarge trees where we had expected, but further along in the next paddock. An old Kauri sturnp wos ablaze; there were tongues of flame at the roots of several gum trees; many of the posts and battens were burning; but worst of all, little jets of smoke were coming from numerous points quite a 1ong way out in the paddock. Driven by the rough sou'wester, the fires had run along the dry grass and burrowed at every underground root.
I turned Beauty and set her at a gallop across the uneven paddock.  She knew there was an emergency. Father and uncle Sam were levelling the tennis court when I galloped up with my unwelcome news. They just glanced at each other, hoisted a shovel and spade onto their shoulders, and set off towards the fire, while I went to tell rny mother and sisters.
In a few minutes they too were ready, and when we had caught their ponies, we cantered after the men. When we arrived, they were already at work. I do not think I will ever forget the horrible feeling it gave me when I saw their unreal forms, hazy through the smoke, rushing hither and thither, beating, banging, at the tongues of fire. I had seen pictures of a gas attack during the Great War, and it looked just like that.
"Sacks! Sacks dipped in water!" Father cal1ed, coming over the fence, his voice hoarse and unnatural with smoke. Back to the cow-shed we went. All the sacks we  could find were pushed into the trough, and then dripping wet, flung over the ponies' shoulders. They shuddered as the water ran down their skins, but even Frosty didn't have time to object very much as we hurried back to the fires. Though the ponies were milling we soon realised that it was too far to ride nearly half a mile to dampen the sacks, so Mary caught a couple of working horses and harnesssed them to the sledge, while the rest of us collected ail the cans and drums we could fit on, and filled them with water.
All the long, hot afternoon we toiled with the aid of several of our neighbours who had come to offer help. While the men pulled up the fence surrounding the young trees and dug a trench to the leeward, we watered the fires out in the padock outside the break they had made.  The firey heat from the blazing gorse from across the drain, seemed to scorch our skins, while the evil sme1ling smoke made eyes and noses smart and sting. lt didn't really matter that we were all wet and streaked with b1ack, because we could only see each other dimly through the smoke anyway.

Peat fires

But our efforts were futile. Except for the fence we had saved, everything else among the burning peat would have to go, and we must concentrate all our energy on stopping the progress of the devouring monster. Accordingly, Father put the horses into the swamp plough and enclosed all the fires, about eight acres now, inside a second trench. At about eight o'clock the wind dropped, and Father felt it was safe enough to leave the battleground for the night. We felt so tired and sick we couldn't even laugh at each other.
On Wednesday morning, my Father said that as there were so many men coming to help, he would need me only as a messenger. They had decided that except for widening and patrolling the trench, nothing could be done in our place, but that a trench dug over the other side of the Lake Drain and surrounding all the burning parts, would prevent the flames from sweeping that way and attacking further North. So with axes and shovels they cleared about three feet in the bracken and gorse and stumps and dug a small trench about eighteen inches deep. Such an absurdly small break it seemed to me! And on it hung the fate of farms around.
I felt very thirsty. "What do the men feel like?" I wondered. So as soon as there were no messages to be done, I went back to the house and collected a billy of tea.
Do you remember the first time I tried to carry a billy on Beauty? It was when you were staying with us, eight years ago when Beauty was new. We went down to the pigsty to get curds and whey for the hens, but as soon as you passed the bucket up to me, Beauty took off and bucked all the way across the paddock. The curds and whey went all over me and the pony, which frightened her more than ever. Then the bucket flew one way, I ended up in a Scotchman (thistle), while Beauty kept bucking and bucking until she reached the bottom gate. She has learned to let us carry things on her now.

After The Peat Fire 1935

The men were glad to see us as we took a drink to each fire-fighter. Isn't it wonderful how the farmers round have rallied to our assistance? Men from Rototuna, Puketaha, Gordonton and Horsham Downs, have left their work to dig round the fires and trenches. But for their timely help, we could have had all the flats ablaze as my father says they were twenty three years ago.
I am looking forward to February. I am going to High School! In 1930 when my elder sister was ready to go to High School, there wee enough other childeen from the district to run a bus, but when I got Proficiency three years ago, it was the middle of the slump, and none of farmers round could afford to pay the bus fare. My best friend, Sybil Cleland, rode her horse into town each day, but it is eight miles each way and our horses aren't good enough for that. Clelands breed thoroughbreds, you know.
So I have been a pupil of the correspondence School for three years. I've got Matric., and am going to have a year at High School before I go to Training College.
There will be six of us from Gordonton going to High School or Tech this year, and the parents will take it in turns to drive us in. I am glad we are gettinng enough for our butterfat so that Father can afford to do so, but I hope I am not behind the other kids in the sixth form. My Matric. marks were good, so I shouldn't be, but we shall soon see.
Love from

"Okorpong," 
Puketaha R.D. 
Hamilton.
2/4/36
Dear Flora,
I was glad to get your letter, and to know you are interested in what happened to our farm. Yes, the danger from peat fires is over for this year, but Father and the other farmers are trying to get this area gazetted a "Fire District" so that no one will be able to leave a fire unattended during the "danger" months. This year we have lost a double row of young trees as well as several chains of fencing, and about eight acres of land which will be out of production for two or three years, but of course it could have been much worse if it hadn't been for the help of the farmers around. One of my father's friends in Mangawara has lost over half his cultivated land, and was lucky to have been able to save his cow-shed; but his hay-stacks are gone and there will be absolutely nothing to feed his cows on during the winter. He's afraid he will just lwve to walk off - and after holding on during the lean days of the depression, it does seem hard that someone else's carelessness should rob him of the work of a life-time.
In our district, the February rains were heavy enough for the men to be able to relax their vigilance, though it wasn't until late iMarch that the fires ceased to burn, and it isn't really safe to step on it yet. Two of our calves got into a paddock about a fortnight ago, and the stupid things walked in - just from curiousity, I guess - but they burned their feet so badly that one of them had to be destroyed.
Maybe the fires have made a good job of getting rid of our neighbour's manuka and rushes, but it hasn't done us any good. Far from it! Great black stumps in the most weird shapes stand up from the grey ash. An angry rooster stands there crowing beside St. George's dragon, and near the gate there is a big fat parrot with it's head on one side. (They are renlly the roots of trees that grew perhaps a million years ago.) A Kauri root about fourteen feet across could be a man-eating spider from Mars. Mother said big stumps like this covered all the flats years ago, and the cows played peep-oh among them when she was trying to bring them into the shed! With blasting powder and axe and saw, and with the help of hard-working horses, my father and Uncle Sam cleared them away, and we didn't need any more stumping to do! The corner of the paddock that was burnt is about four feet lower than the rest, so you can see how much soil has been destroyed.
I am enjoying High School too. I don't think I get as much work done as I did when I was working on my own, but we have debates and discussions, which I like. I can't join in the oral Latin Lessons though - the others laugh at my pronunciation which is apparently all wrong, so it's just as well I hadn't taken French and expected to be understood.
The Mothers who take us into school have never been out so frequently in all their lives. Sometimes they take us right to school in the mornings, but usually we walk across the railway bridge at night and are picked up at Myrtle Street. Mother thinks that two hours out of her day makes it very short for all the things she wants to do, so I will need to work hard to make it worth her while.
Your loving cousin,
Edith.

Great roots were left like evil spiders.

References:
Rushes ‘an Raupo, To cows an’ Clover by Edith Williamson