FIRE BRIGADE DELAYED

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27859, 6 January 1956, Page 10

FIRE BRIGADE DELAYED

WATER PLUG NOTICE OBSCURED

HOUSES THREATENED BY BLAZE IN SHED

A fire-plug post thickly o ’ergrown by ice-plant, and a car parked over the plug in the roadside gravel delayed firemen who answered a call to a fire early yesterday morning. However, the brigade quickly ran a hose out from the next fire point and took over from two men who had been throwing buckets of water against the wall of an old wooden house to prevent flames spreading from a blazing washhouse sft away.

Mr J. Harper, of 37 Linwood avenue, was painting in the front room of his 2 a.m. when he noticed a glow behind the home of Miss E. Bashford, across the road at number 48. <He roused Mr A. Freebairn, in the next flat, and they dashed across the street. Miss M. A. Cradock had also noticed the fire, from her home at number 50. and woke Miss Bashford. The fire brigade was called, and the two men used buckets of water to prevent the back wall of the house catching alight.

The shed was burnt to the ground, and a ribbonwood tree growing beside it was badly scorched. Miss Bashford lost a new wringer, a new hose, a new lawnmower. and a bicycle in the fire. Part of the back wall of the house was scorched, and a window and glass louvres were cracked by the heat.

It was fortunate that the fire had been discovered so early, said Mr Freebairn, because Miss Cradock’s home was only a few feet away in the next section. If Miss Bashford’s house had caught fire, her neighbour’s house would have been threatened. After the fire was under control, firemen cut away the ice-plant to reveal the fire-plufe, post standing back against a fence, said a spokesman for the Christchurch Fire Brigade last evening. By this time the car had also been moved.