TIMARU DRAPERY STOREROOM FIRE

Press, Volume C, Issue 29504, 4 May 1961, Page 9

TIMARU DRAPERY STOREROOM FIRE

Damage Estimated At £9500

(From Our Own Reporter) TIMARU, May 3. Damage estimated at £ssoo was caused in a drapery storeroom used by Millers (Timarul. Ltd., when fire broke out in a 60ft by 60ft brick building at the rear of the Stafford street shop at about 9.21 a.m. today. The Timaru Fire Brigade was on the scene within two minutes of receiving an emergency call, and four machines were co-ordinated to fight the fire. The local manager of Millers. Ltd. (Mr B. Darroch) said that two employees, Messrs E. Tee and T. Walton had been in the storeroom and there had not been any sign of smoke or fire. When they returned less than four minutes later and opened the door, smoke gushed out and a curtain of fire enveloped the goods stacked in shelves against the far wall facing Sophia street. The men closed the door and immediately summoned the brigade. Mr Darroch said that invoices had been recovered almost intact, but the fire destroyed irreplaceable material such as bolts of cloth, flannelette sheets, suit lengths, blankets and men’s wear. Display equipment in the attic was also destroyed or damaged. Charred display models were among the debris. The storeroom beneath the building, used by Self-Help Co-operative, Ltd.. 238 Stafford street, for the storage of bulk groceries, was undamaged by fire, but there was water damage to groceries. Minor damage was caused to the brick building, but there was considerable damage to the interior walls. A hole was punched in the roof to prevent the fire obtaining a greater hold on cardboard cartons and other equipment stacked in the attic. The first indication the staff of the grocery store received that there was a fire was from a bystander. There was very little smoke at the back of the shop, but water from the hoses was soon pouting from the drapery storeroom through the wooden flooring and into the basement. The cause of the fire is not known, but evidently it originated in the drapery storeroom,