PETERSFIELD.
DESTRUCTIVE FIRE IN WOOLMER FOREST. —One of the most destructive fires that has ever occurred in Woolmer Forest took place in Longmoor Inclosore, comprising several hundred acres of fine fir plantation (being Government property) of many years growth, which have been wholly consumed. There is little doubt but that it was wilfully fired as the heath was discovered to ignite simultaneously in three or four different places on the northeast of the plantation on Wednesday evening, and raged fearfully throughout the night and following day. The house of Samuel Dixon, one of the warders of the forest, was enveloped in the devouring element and quickly consumed, being on the southern portion of the inclosure, the whole of which at the time of writing (Thursday evening, eight o’clock,) is consumed, and the fire still continuing over the Heath towards Liss and Greatham.
Hampshire Telegraph — Saturday 20 August 1864i
PETERSFIELD
AGENT—Mr. G. DUPLOCK
EXTENSIVE FIRE IN WOOLMER FOREST.—On Wednesday evening last dense masses of smoke and a lurid glare were observed in the atmosphere, indicating the raging of a very large fire in the direction of Liss and Woolmer. On enquiry it was found that in the course of the afternoon fires had broken out almost simultaneously in several places on the forest lying between the Petersfield and Farnham road and the railway from Liss to Liphook, these fires continued to spread during the night and the whole of the next day, and on Thursday evening, when our report left, it was stated that they comprised upwards of 600 acres and the devastation was still extending, several large fir plantations being on fire, and in the parched condition of the heath and brushwood it is impossible to conjecture where the conflagration will end.
London Evening Standard — Monday 22 August 1864
GREAT FIRE AT WOOLMER FOREST.
LISS, Sunday Evening
A tremendous conflagration, more like one of the prairie fires of the western continent than anything we are accustomed to realise in this country, occurred in Longmoor enclosure on Wednesday evening, and in its course, which has only just been arrested, has rendered a belt of country seven miles in breadth and three in depth a scene of black desolation. Hundreds of acres of fir plantation, the property of the government, have been destroyed, besides several plantations belonging to private individual, and an immense quantity of game.
The fire commenced just below Sleaforth-gate, to the rigbt of the Petersfield-road. It was observed to break out simultaneously in a dozen different places, and, owing to the dryness of the heath and furze, it spread with alarming rapidity. It was not long before the plantations became a sheet of fire, which roared and crackled witb ominons fury, and tinged the sky for miles with a lurid glare, which inspired the belief in distant places that a whole town was in fames. At Godalming, Guildford, and Aldershot, the fire was plainly seen, and when the authorities of the latter place had ascertained its situation and magnitude a body of troops, consisting of the 75th and 83d Regiments, and a detachment of the Royal Engineers, in all about 1000 men, were dispatched to Woolmer to dig a trench, and employ other military means for cutting off and subduing the fire. By the time of their arrival, however, the flames had extended over a vast area of fir plantations, and it was evident that the reduction of the conflagration would be the work of some time, if not of difficulty. Great fears were entertained for the farms, and other dwellings near, the mass of flame was so vast, and the heat so fearful, and it was a fortunate circumstance that there was scarcely any wind, as otherwise the flames must have embraced a still wider area of destruction, and perhaps have defied every effort for their extinction. Notwithstanding the active exertions of the military, the fire continued to rage during Thursday, Friday, and a portion of Saturday, leaving little but the blackened embers of thousands of fir trees in once flourishing plantations, and transforming the landscape for a long distance into a dreary wilderness. On Friday the conflagration was a grand though almost terrifying spectacle, from a mile beyond New Inn the fire was burning to Weaver's Hill, a distance of at least five miles, scaring from from the coverts every living thing that it did not destroy, and darkening the air far as the eye could see with roiling billows of smoke. Several cottages and outbuildings fell a prey to the flames, and of the quantity of game destroyed some idea may be formed from the fact that no less than twelve hares were taken out of one hole burnt to death. On Saturday the military succeeded in successfully arresting the progress of the fire, and if no further danger is apprehended the force will return to Aldershot to-morrow morning.
The fire was evidently the work of incendiaries. There is no one who ventures a contrary opinion, aud tbe supposition is strengthened by the fact that the gipsies and broomsellers who were allowed to gather broom and heath and to depasture their cattle in the neighbourhood have this year been denied those privileges. Some of them were heard to say that they would be revenged on this account, and the extensive conflagration is pretty generally considered as the fulfilment of their threat