HOUSE BURNT AT PREBBLETON

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25737, 24 February 1949, Page 4

HOUSE BURNT AT PREBBLETON

t FIRE SPREADS OVER FORTY ACRES

STABLE AND GRANARY ALSO DESTROYED

An old six-roomed, unoccupied house in Springs road, Prebbleton, owned by St. Saviour’s Orphanage, was destroyed by a fire which spread over about 40 acres of ' grass and stubble paddocks in the district late yesterday afternoon. A stable, a granary containing three tons of nay, and three acres of clover ready for harvesting, all on the neighbouring property of Mr A. J. Earnshaw, were also burned.

Mr Earnshaw’s house was menaced, and at one stage there was fire on three sides of it. The fire is thought to have started near the Little River railway line south of the Junction road crossing, several hundred yards above the houses on Springs road. It spread quickly, fanned by a strong northwest wind, across a stubble paddock, toward the houses on Springs road. It was first seen by Mr Earnshaw about 5.20 p.m., and he said that the flames were at that time 30 feet high and that "Highland Fling couldn’t, have beaten them.”

The fire swept quickly across wheat* stubble and gorse fences down to the house owned by the orphanage and round Mr Earnshaw’s house, which was protected by a green macrocarpa hedge. It jumped Springs road and burned about 20 acres of stubble paddock and about 20 tons of baled straw cn the farm of Mr D. Warren, on the othc_ side of the road, before it was brought under control by fire-fighting units.

The fire was attended by a combination unit from the Christchurch Central Fire Brigade and by the Hornby Volunteer Fire Brigade. Two crash tenders and 30 airmen in a truck were sent from the Air Force station at Wigram. Thd fire was under control by 6.30 p.m*. but continued to smoulder. The men from Wigram did not leave .until 7.50 p.m.

The house adjoining Mr Earnshaw's was not in the direct path of the fire, but Mr J. Burrows, the owner, said he thought it would have been' destroyed had it not been for a small paddock of potatoes.