LONDON BLAZE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 150, 28 June 1939, Page 11

LONDON BLAZE.

EIGHT WAREHOUSES.

Sheets Of Flame Sweep From Building To Building.

MANY MIRACULOUS ESCAPES

British Official Wireless. (Received -2 p.m.) RKJBV, June 27. The entire fire-fighting forces of the London County Council are tonight engaged in efforts to control a great conflagration in the heart of the city's tire danger zone resulting from an outbreak in a five-storey general H-arehou.se on the corner of Barbican Street and New Zealand Avenue within a stone's throw of Aldersgate underground station. Outside fire stations have received urgent instructions to stand by in case I <>t" calls from other part* of the area since .">!» L.C.C. stations have sent men and appliances to Barbican Street. I Six giant water towers poured thousands of gallons of water on the lire, which soon included eight great warehouses, of which four were rapidlv gutted. The whole of Aldersgate Street was! within a short time Hooded to a depth of a foot. Solid sheets of flame swept from building to building, while a vast cloud of smoke rose high over the city. The post ottice in Uarbican Street was threatened by tile encroaching Maze. I'p to !) p.m. it was not known if there was any loss of life. When the fire first started there were about KMI men and women in various buildings and many had miraculous escapes from death by getting away over the roofs of other building!* and then through their emergency tire escapes. It is feared that the damage will reach £1,000,000. A hundred fire appliances of every description with 400 firemen were on the scene—the greatest number ever to assemble at London The blaze was the biggest London has experienced since the Cripplegate" tire of 1897.