FIRE AT BLACKBALL.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 165, 14 July 1928, Page 11

FIRE AT BLACKBALL.

THREE BUILDINGS LOST. HOTEL, HALL AND STORE. BUCKET BRIGADE SAVES OTHERS (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) GREYMOUTH, this day. Blackman's Hotel, the Gymnasium HalU, and the Co-operative Store at Blackball, were destroyed by fire early this morning. The fire started in a storeroom at the back of the store, and quickly ff>read to the adjoining hotel and gymnasium. Every effort was made by the fire fighters to subdue the .outbreak, but the wind fanned the flames and the fire spread to the Co-operative Store, Wtich was soon enveloped. Stenhouse's store and the Oddfellows' Hall also caught fire, but desperat» efforts by the bucket brigade saved them. The furniture and other goods in th<' hotel were saved, but the proprietor antf others who lived there lost their persona 1 effects. The hotel was owned by Mr. Black man, and Mr. J. Mettrick owned the furniture in the hotel, and the gym nasium and the store. As the fire was burning the electric current poles it was decided to cut off the current from the Blackball mine which supplies the township, owing tr the danger of falling wires.