The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-08-22 00:00:00

PRAIRIE FIRE IN SURREY.

During last week, a correspondent writes, the scenes 01
a veritable prairie fire were realised in West Surrey,
on the wide commons that stretch between Frensham
and Thursley ; and, though but a miniature fire, it
surpassed anything that had occurred in the neigh-
bourhood for nearly fifty years. The long drought of
June and July reduced the barren, sandy soil of these
Surrey commons to a state of extraordinary dryness;
the heather was parched and withering; the peaty
earth was dry for a foot below the surface; every-
thing pointed to the possibility of a great fire, and this
result was finally brought about by a mischievous
boy setting the heather alight in the neighbourhood
of Thursley, on the slopes of the great Hind-
head common. For two or three days
the fire did more or less damage in the
quarter where it was first kindled, and a tall pillar of
cloud notified to the surrounding country that some-
thing was wrong; then a brisk south-easterly wind
sprang up, and the flames started in earnest to over-
run the long line of heathery hills which jut out from
Hindheacl to the north. When the fire was seen to
be surmounting this ridge people- began to understand
that something unusual was coming. Living at the
edge of this very common, at a point where the road
is only separated from the heather by a narrow strip
of verdure traversed by a small brook, I bad excellent
opp9rtunities for watching the progress of the fire.
Standing below the ridge on the west side, while
the flames were still occupied with the heather
at the top, one looked up into a vast
canopy of fiery smoke, which partially obscured
the sun and shed a glow on the heather, making
its purple still deeper. The hiss and roar of
the i
line of flame were tremendous, and the pace at
which t travelled was really remarkable, the heather,
gorse, and fern being licked up with extraordinary
rapidity. Here and there, on the outskirts of the
common, stood groups of cottagers watching the
advance of the fire, and perhaps not altogether
displeased at anything which will reduce the number
of rtbbits, the scourge of their gardens, which un-
popular landlords preserve for purposes of sport.
Numbers of men, armed with sticks and boughs of
trees, were attempting to beat down the flames, but
th 3 strength of the wind rendered all their efforts
unavailing. I next ascended the ridge itself at a point
which the fire had not yet reached, and there witnessed
a still more unusual spectacle. The east wind had
carried the fire over the top of the ridge Li
several places, but the heather along the greater pal+,
of the summit remained unconsurned, thqugh a low
fringe of fire was now eating its way slowly backwards
a,gainst the wind. In front, over the sheltered side of
the hill, hung vast masses of smoke rising from the
fire now caging bdow, through which one saw neigh-
bouring heights looming weird and gigantic through,
the shifting wreaths of vapour; so great is the power
of mist to amplify and idealise the forms of even the
smallest hill-tops. Everything was altered and
exaggerated, and I found some difficulty in finding
my 7:.1,37 down over ground which had been perfectly
familiar an hour or two before.

But the weirdest spectacle was when night drew
on. The wind had then fallen, and the fury of the
fire was exhausted; though it was still impossible to
tell the extent of the devastation, for in addition to
the smoke everywhere rising from the heath, there
rose also in some places a damp, chilly mist. Here
and there sparks occasionally lit up into a flame by a
passing breath of wind showed that the fire was only
smouldering, and by no means extinguished. In one
place I found a sort of fiery wigwam,a druidical circle
of piles of peat turf, which, having once caught fire,
outlived the rest of the conflagration, and burned
slo-vly and mysteriously through the night, giving a
very welcome warmth and light to one who had been
wandering in the deadly chill of the mist and smoke
all around. As I returned home and left the common
I saw a strange luminous cloud hanging over the hill,
telling that the fire still raged in some quarter.
Daybreak brought to our minds the nature and the
extent of the mischief. Instead of miles of purple
heath and heather, rolling in unbroken waves over
the common, we looked out on a black and dreary
tract, suggestive of certain scenery between Birming-
ham and Wolverhampton. It was a comfort, how-
ever, on going out of doors to find that the course of
the lire-track had been very partial, and that a good
many patches of heather had escaped, and were now
left like verdant islands in a sea of desolation. One
curious result of the fire was seen in the bringing to
light of old paths and cart-tracks, which, thottlh
maidiv,d in, ordnance maps, had been so overgrown by
heaher is to baffle detection. But the face of the
country, was' grievotisly '11:1A woul,ly changed. It
will take thee "1"6 .'he placeoitself,again ;
and in the meantime we must hope we shall not
lose what is left to us of our heather through
another ecn=piracy of sun, wind, and a mischievous
boy,

SATURDAY, AUG. 22, 1885.