FILMS DESTROYED.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 46, 24 February 1927, Page 11

FILMS DESTROYED.

BLAZE AT WELLINGTON. THIRTY GIRLS ESCAPE. MAN AND WIFE TRAPPED. SAVED BY LUGGAGE LIFT. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON. Vhis day.

Several thousand feet of cinematograph film was destroyed in a fire at 8.30 this on the second floor of the A.B.C. Building on Lam'jton Quay. Without warning a tongue of flame C E sprung up irom a bale of waste him j which two young men, employed by Mr. j A. A. P. Mackenzie, contractor for printing the New Zealand Publicity Department's films, were unpacking. In a few minutes the room was ablaze, and dense clouds of smoke and vivid flames issuing from the room caused alarm to other occupants of the building. Thirty girls working in Mr. Mackenzie's photographic rooms oil the third floor were got out without difficulty. but Mrs. J. E. Keating, of A.B.C. Motors, who lives with her husband on the top floor, was trapped by the flames and driven on to the roof until a luggage lift at the rear of the building was rent up. The brigade was quickly on tHe scene. A door leading from the negative sorting room to the titling room was open, and the flames spread through, destroying a number c: books and 2000 feet of film. In the first floor departments were 6000 ft of film, a cinema machine valued at £3-30. and titling gear worth about £45. Most of the film was locked up in the strong room, otherwise the fire might have defied the brigade. As it was. the flames were suppressed without great damage to the building.