£14,000 FIRE AT AUCKLAND

Press, Volume C, Issue 29402, 3 January 1961, Page 8

£14,000 FIRE AT AUCKLAND

Furniture Plant Destroyed

<t'fw Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, Jan. 2. Fire destroyed a large furniture factory within an hour in Auckland this afternoon. The factory and its machinery, the property of Sharp and Andrew, Ltd., in Ewington avenue, were valued at about £14.000. Only timber worth about £2OOO was saved from the flames. The premises were insured. It is not known when the fire started, but when ' flremen arrived at about 2.35 p.m. the two old buildings had merged into a roaring blaze. Firemen estimated it had been burning about 20 minutes before the alarm was given.

All that remained of the factory half an hour after the arrival of the flremen was a smouldering heap of blackened wood, twisted steel and buckled iron. Stacks of valuable timber in the factory yards were reduced to charred sticks. Houses behind the factory were scorched. Firemen fought desperately to save houses behind the buildings and a block of shops to the north of them. Their task was made difficult by a steady northerly wind that drove the fire ahead of them into an adjoining shed and sawdust hopper. At one time the heat was so intense that onlookers about 60 yards away were driven back.