Community water supplies are dwindling and brush fires are posing a dangerous threat to woodlands as a persistent drought continues to grip the Eastern third of the United States.

From Chicago eastward, the outlook for rain is reported dismal. After a cold September, unreasonably warm temperatures prevail this month.

Thousands of acres of forestland are burning. Most of the states in the Eastern U.S. have closed public lands to picnickers, hunters and fishermen until the drought is alleviated.

In New York, state officials estimate that virtually all the land available to the public has now been put off limits. The deer and bear hunting season, scheduled to open October 25th, will be postponed unless rain lifts the fire threat.

The Governor of Connecticut closed the duck-hunting season.

In Pennsylvania, an estimated 23-hundred acres of timber have fallen victim to raging frames. Fires continue to burn out of control in New Jersey, where 12-hundred acres of state forest have been blackened.

A growing water shortage is complicating the forest fire situation.

In Middletown, Connecticut, the water situation was described as desperate and the city signed a contract to pipe water in from a nearby state hospital.

In New Jersey, there is only 40 per cent of capacity in the reservoir that supplies Newark, the biggest city in the state.

There was some relief on the western edge of the drought area. Rain fell in Iowa, Missouri and parts of Illinois, in the Middle West. The rains presented an ironic problem-farmers now need dry weather again to harvest record corn and soybean crops.

But there is still no immediate outlook for rain in many areas of the Eastern United States.Croplands are still being damaged and water supplies continue low.