Melbourne, Thursday 2 February 1939

[Mr. Gowans]: How long have you been in that district?
66 years. I have been there all my life and I am in my 70th year. I have no axe to grind in giving evidence before this Commission. I am too old to go into the bush; it is a young man’s job, but I would like to see the forest preserved for future generations.

You have seen a few fires through that area?
I have.

Have you ever seen one as fierce as the last one?
No, I have not. The 1926 fire was pretty bad but it did not burn as bad as this one. It did in places, but the forest did not get it as bad.

Have you any idea why this particular one should have been as bad as it was?
The heat of the debris that was on the forest floor.

What do you say about the debris?
I say that it accumulated since 1926. You are bound to lose your forest if you do not burn your debris, but my experience has been that if you burn when it will burn, the timber has not been killed.

What about the bracken. Has that accumulated more in recent years?
Yes; when we were in the bush we used to burn it whenever it would burn. No timber was lost from the time I went into the bush in 1905 until I left it about 1925. I was there before this was made a reserve forest.

It was in 1907 that I took this Stockman’s Run adjoining the Cumberland. The Cumberland was burned in 1906 and it has never had a fire in it until now. I left Stockman’s Run about 1920 and I burned that run whenever it would burn. I think it was the year before I left Stickman’s Run that the Crown Lands Department sent me a paper to sign. The paper stated that I would be fined 25 pounds if I lit a fire.

I sent it back and said that the run was no good to me if I could not burn it. They sent back for my cheque for the lease. I heard no more about it after sending it down and leaving the run. It was Crown land. I burnt it whenever it would burn. There was woolly butt on it, as well as Mountain Ash and there was never a tree killed because it was burnt when it was light. It was not a matured forest. There were trees there 1 ft. and 2 ft thick.

Do you remember any particular place where a fierce, hot fire had gone through Mountain Ash and the trees had recovered afterwards?
I will come to that when we get back to the Little River. When I left up there I took the Blue Range run which is between the Rubicon and the Little River.

There is a beautiful forest in the head of it. I called on Mr. Mackay who was then Chairman of the Forests Commission and said to him 'If you do not burn that forest, you will lose the lot'. He said 'We will see to it'. Several years went past and the fires came from Narbethong and burned the lot of it. They burned my sheep as well as their timber.

The forest that sprung up after that was a good forest, but I do not know whether it is still there. The sheep were all through it and when I went out to get them, I saw saplings 10 to 12 feet high, so that shows it will grow again. However, if the fire had gone through it before the trees were matured enough to drop seeds, there would have been no young forest.

The seedlings would not stand a heavy fire but they seemed to grow so quickly that it is a job to get a fire through them. I never saw any seedlings killed if the burning was done when it was cool. A fire coming up a gully causes a terrible suction and burns everything in its wake.

[Mr. Slater]: You suggest that the perfectly clean forest floor should be aimed at?
As clean as you can; you cannot get it perfectly clean. I understand that one and half million pounds was spent on fire breaks that were not worth anything. They were only death traps and the men were just as likely to get burnt in them.

[Mr. Gowans]: After all, the question of preventing these burns and keeping the forest clean is a matter where judgement must be exercised by the forest officers?
The way they have handled it - not me. If you want to conserve the forests, take them away from the Forests crowd. They have had them for 20 years and they have lost the lot. I am an old man but I want to see the forests preserved for the future. I have no axe to grind.

Do you say that no judgment enters into the question at all?
I say to burn the forest when it will burn. That is the only judgment you want.