FIRE IN SLIPPER FACTORY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 27, 12 November 1947, Page 5

FIRE IN SLIPPER FACTORY

SECOND IN 10 YEARS (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Nov. 11. For the second time in 10 years, flames leaped from tile factory building in Drummond Street, Newtown—a slipper factory operated by T. J Davenport and Sons—in the early hours of this morning. The last time it was gutted. This time the Welllington Fire Brigade made a brilliant save, extinguishing the outbreak as the flames licked round a 44-gallon drum of dieselene. Thick smoke from burning stacks of hides and srepe rubber in the building forced the firemen to wear respirators. The heat, inside was so intense that a thermometer on the far side of tlie building from the lire burst at 13(1 degrees. The outbreak was confined to the front portion of (lie building, around the entrance and up a hoist space to a section of the upper floor. Stock losses were relatively light, only a portion of bales of hides being charred or damaged by water. A new machine for the plant worth over £I.OOO, was moved last evening out of the space where Hie fire occurred, and other plant already in position escaped damage except by water. The factory will not be out of production for more than a day or so. The building is owned by its occupiers, a subsidiary of Felt Textiles, New Zealand, Ltd. At, the time of the 1937 outbreak it was a sweet factory.