BIG FIRE AT DUNEDIN.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 16054, 9 November 1917, Page 11

BIG FIRE AT DUNEDIN.

9 DAMAGE 'ESTIMATED AT OVER £50,000. (PHESS ASSOCIATION" TELEGRAM.) DUNEDIN, November 8. A disastrous fire occurred at John Edmonds's hardware shop and warehouse, Princes street, this morning. The cause of the outbreak is unknown. The fire originated apparently about the centre of the building shortly after 2 a.m. The roof fell in about three o'clock. All tho firemen in the district were engaged, and the trouble was so far in hand by four o'clock as to allow tho auxiliaries to be dismissed. Two firemen, named Goldsmith and Adamson, were thrown from a ladder and injured. They were removed to the hospital, but the injuries are believed not to be serious. Nothing was of Edmonds's building but the outer walls. A rough estimate of the damage is £50,000 to the stock and £7000 to the building. j The Grand Picture Palace next door | has the interior soaked, the damage ; being probably under £1000. The Public Trust Office next door south escaped with about £50 damage. Steel's Clothing Factory, above Moritzson's, had the roof badly damaged and the contents soaked and water-stained. Edmonds's insurances total £30,000. Of this £25,000 is on the stock and £5000 in the building. The risks are distributed fairly evenly over twenty of the offices operating m Dunedin. THE WANT OF TRAINED FIREMEN. (special to "the PMtSS.") DUNEDIN, November 8. The big fire at Edmonds raises the question of experienced firemen being called up under the Military Service Act. Superintendent Napier, of the Dunedin Brigade, says the fire gives the community a severe and necessary lesson. The military have taken from the brigade a number of experienced men, and he felt their loss very much on this occasion. "I feel very strongly on the subject," he remarked. "The city cannot afford to wait for a big fire for teaching purposes. The men who were taken as soldiers had the knowledge born of experience, onci that is of the greatest use under such conditions as »ve went through this: morning. I feel the position very strongly. I told the Military Servico Board at the time that they were making a mistake in taking tne trained men. Now my warning is verified. I don't undervalue my present men, or say a word against them; what I do to impress on the authorities is that men untrained to big fires cannot be so expert in such fires as men who have been through the experience."