Elderly Man Dies In Fire

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30795, 6 July 1965, Page 1

Elderly Man Dies In Fire

(Ntw Zealand Prest Anociation)

WELLINGTON, July 5. A 74-year-old man was burned to death in a fire which raced through a boarding house in Barker street, Wellington, tonight.

A married couple and another boarder fled from the house when fire broke out about 6 p.m. Firemen wearing respirators found the body of a man in the kitchen at the back of the house. He was George Blair, a pensioner, who had been staying there for three months. Firemen controlled the blaze in about 25 minutes. Mr W. Tipene and his wife, Carol, were sitting in their room at the front when the fire began. Mr Tipene said he saw

flames in the passage and coming from Mr Blair’s room. “1 ran down the passage but couldn't find him. My wife ran outside and I followed,” he said. The manager of the boarding house, William Grant, said he saw the flames from a hotel a few hundred yards away. He ran down but could not get inside because of the heat and fumes.

Mr Grant said Mr Blair kept several electrical appliances in his room. He said the fire started in Mr Blair’s room and apparently spread quickly. “George must have run across to the kitchen but couldn’t get out before he was overcome.” The front two rooms were not badly damaged but the other eight were burned out