WORST MOTOR FIRE

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 58, 10 March 1927, Page 22

WORST MOTOR FIRE

MORE THAN £100,000 DAMAGE. HUNDREDS OF CARS BURNT. SENSATIONAL INCIDENTS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, March 4. Damage estimated between £100,000 and £150,000 was caused by the fire which this -week destroyed the assembly plant of Ilolden's, Ltd., Sydney. The liro was attended by a series of sensational incidents, and is easily the most destructive motor lire in the history of the State. Ilolden's building fronts William St., Sydney, and the plant itself is built, as it were, inside the side street frontages, which are lined with cottages and residential houses. It was of Two floors, and was packed with about 250 cars, the property of Cheney's Motors, Ltd., a, recently-formed £1,000,000 company. The factory was used to assemble and build cars, and contained live paint shops, in which was much inflammable material.

In addition, there was a 300-gallon petrol tank in the centre of the building, and from every aspect the fire was one which worried the brigadesmen. It broke out at 7 p.m., and had such a hold in one of the paint shops that a caretaker who attempted to extinguish it at the outset was severely burned on the arms. Flames were all through one floor by the time the firemen were on the spot, and they had a hectic time stopping the fire's spread to tho residences crowding the works on every side. Just as the lire was at its height, and the building was surrounded by interested crowds on all sides, a terrific explosion occurred, blowing out doors and windows, and injuring one of the firemen. More sensational still, it threw a heavy compressed air cylinder about 300 feet in the air. Twirling as it fell, the cylinder crashed through the roof of a block of flats which adjoined tho scene of the fire, penetrated the ceiling of the top flat, and almost pierced the floor there. It wrecked the room, which had been occupied five minutes previously.

At the time of the explosion there were many thousands of sightseers in the street outside the factory, and they turned and ran in panic when the windows and doors blew out. Police cleared the street after that, and had just got the last man out of that vicinity when an electric cable snapped and fell writhing in the roadway, sending up showers of sparks. If it had fallen ten minutes before scores of people would have been undoubtedly electrocuted. Fearing that the fire was certain to spread to the adjoining premises, many of the occupants of shops and flats on the William Street frontage carried their goods out to the street. They were assisted by thieves, apparently, for it was discovered afterwards that hundreds of pounds' worth of property had disappeared. In the deserted flats, too, thieves scored a harvest. There wag no one to stop them entering the buildings, and they broke open drawers and cupboards, making many hauls of cash, as well as jewellery. '

A feature of the fire was that, the heat affected the electrical systems on the completed cars, and short-circuited the wires, causing the horns to sound continuously until the vehicles were desTBe Wailing'of the horns, added to the thud of the water and the crackle of the flames, made a weird conglomeration of sound. This was added to, at intervals, by the explosion of petrol tanks on the cars, and these were followed by bursts of acrid' black smoke which all but smothered the firemen and cleared the remnants of the crowd from the vicinity. Fortunately the firemen by continuously playing a hose on the ton of the tank containing 300 gallons or petrol, were able .to keep it safe. Had it blown up, of course, the surrounding damage would have been enormous. Chief officer of the brigades subsequently made a statement in which he deprecated the storage of such inflammable materials in a building so close to the heart of the city. He delivered also a homily on. the foolishness of the crowd in obstructing the firemen at work.