BIG BLAZE IN 1908

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30325, 28 December 1963, Page 8

BIG BLAZE IN 1908

Old Fireman’s Recollections

An 85-year-old former fireman, Mr A. J. Beattie, who 55 years ago fought one of the most disastrous fires in Christchurch, was a caller at the new Headquarters Fire Station in Kilmore street yesterday.

Mr Beattie recalled that he was only 10 years old when he often played the wag from school to watch the city’s fire-fighters at work. In 1900, he joined the Christchurch Fire Police, a volunteer body of about 40 fire-fighters attached to the police. In 1907, Mr Beattie joined the fire brigade. A year later, on February 6, the brigade was having its annual dinner when fire broke out in the right-of-way next to the White Hart Hotel in High street

The hotel and the D IC. building was razed. The fire spread rapidly from building to building, the wooden “snow bridges” across the dips in the roofs of the buildings helping the flames to spread, Mr Beattie recalled.

Buildings in High street between Cashel and Lichfield streets, were almost all totally destroyed. The firemen used water direct from the main in Sydenham. When this supply failed, it was thought that the whole of the centre of the city would go up in flames in the 50 miles an hour wind that was blowing.

Fortunately, toe firemen found that the cellar of a nearby building was flooded. It was this provident supply of water which enabled them to bring the fire under control.

Mr Beattie thinks that he is the only man amongst those who fought the fire alive today.