FATAL FIRE IN HOTEL.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20251, 1 June 1931, Page 10

FATAL FIRE IN HOTEL.

FOUR LIVES LOST.

TRAGIC OCCURRENCE AT GREYMOUTH.

SEVERAL NARROW ESCAPES

(press association telegram.)

GREYMOUTH, May 31,

A disastrous fire at the Union Hotel at 5.30 a.m. resulted in the loss of four lives. The dead are:—

DAVID ISBESTER, aged 28, railway fireman, formerly of Maori Hill, Dunedin.

WILLIAM HADDOCK, aged 29, a railway linesman, formerly of Petone.

PATRICK PHELAN, aged 29, a barman.

EDMUND RYAN, aged 41, a bushmail.

There were ton inmales, all sleeping in the upper storey.

Mr James Collogan. the proprietor, and his wife and daughter, escaped through a window to an adjoining roof. A housemaid, Miss Mary Southorn, using a rope, escaped through a window on the opposite side, while Mr John Cosgrove, a railway shunter, and Mr Michael Deere, a watereider, had narrow escapes, being burned slightly before getting through the window. Mr Deere opened , the door of his room, meeting a blast of flame, and turned and jumped out of the window to the ground with his night' attire afire. Mr Cosgrove's hair was singed off. The alarm was given by the Tire Brigade Superintendent, Mr Patrick Deere, whose house adjoins the hotel, and tlio Brigade made a wonderful save of most of the building. They thought everybody was out till it was found when the fire was mastered that the bodies of Mr Isboster and Mr Phelan were in a passage in the upper storey, one at either end, to which they had groped towards the exit. Mr Ryan's body was found in the front room, in which he had sought escape. Mr Had' dock's body was beside his bod. All evidently had been suffocated except Mr Phelan, whose body was considerably burned.

The structure, a wooden one, was insured for £I2OO with the Phoenix Company, and £6OO with the South British. The stock was insured for £4OO in the Phoenix office, and the furniture for £224 in the Phoenix office, and £274 in British.

Two boarders, Mr William Baker, a motorman, and Mr William Ryall, also One of the'staff, Miss Belle Irvine, were absent from the hotel last nighty being out of town, while Mr Thomas Donovan, a boarder, who was sleeping in a cottage at 'the rear, was unhurt. The doors at the ends of the passage in the upper storey were unlocked. The victims evidently had been partially overcomo by. the smoke in their rooms. Mr Isbester and Mr Ryan shared a room, and Mr Phelan and Mr Haddock shared another, both, at the top of the stairs.

Mr Deere, in escaping, narrowly missed a fence.