All the terror of raging fire, the despair of loss of stock, homes, orchard and a means of livelihood has been struck numb, and the people dare not look to what the next dag will bring to them in the Bandenong Range arcas. All Melbourne is dumb with horror at the tragedy and loss of life but a few miles distance from this city. A frequent weekend trip, or even an all day motor journey for pleasure seekers is through Den-Neerim, Healesville, Warjarragul.
Telephone mication is cut off in many es, but trains run where pos-zones, keeping touch with the stricken areas. On Ssu February 7, fires raged all day within a short distance of the city, far across the hills to Gippsland at Moe. While Bairns-dale on the Gippsland Lake area was a contre of refuge for the surrounding districts, and from thence to those of Buchan, renowned for caves, east to Orbost, a timber area. Saw millers and their hands fought to save their property and the hood, respectively, and in los they succeeded, but farmers who had cattle, sheep, and cther stock suffered severely, while many a hay stack burnt left little to feed the remnants the winter. For hundreds of miles a screen of suffocating smoke red the country, and Mel-viewed the sunset as a kecat red ball half hidden by dark
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.