BUILDING GUTTED IN FIERCE BLAZE

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31248, 21 December 1966, Page 1

BUILDING GUTTED IN FIERCE BLAZE

Hour’s Fight By Firemen

Forty firemen using 10 appliances battled for an hour to bring under control a spectacular fire which gutted the building occupied by the Para Rubber Company, Ltd., on the corner of Cashel and Manchester streets last evening.

The fire caused damage estimated at £lOO,OOO. Five firemen were injured, three being treated at the hospital.

Thick, acrid, black smoke curled up hundreds of feet as between £30,000 and £40,000 worth of stock, mainly made of plastics and rubber, was destroyed.

On the top floor of the three-storey building, the factory and stock rooms of the Canterbury Woollen Company, Ltd., were destroyed.

Mr R. R. Roberts, of the company, said that all the 20 persons who worked in the factory had left except Mr W. Cornelius, aged 22, who telephoned the fire brigade and said that flames were up to the second floor as he left the top floor.

Mr Roberts said that sewing machines, other machinery, and woollen piece-goods were all lost in the fire. Damage could be worth as much as £lO,OOO. About 20 staff members were in the shop of the Para Rubber Company on the ground floor when the fire broke out Senior staff members got the others and a dozen customers out quickly and safely.

Cash Removed The 12 staff members in the head office of the company on the second floor also got out hurriedly and safely. Cash in the head office and the shop was safely removed. The alarm was given at 5.10 p.m. on the 111 emergency service call, and the first appliances, including the turntable ladder, were at the scene within three minutes.

The signal back to headquarters that the fire was under control was sent at 6.14 p.m.

Staff members of the rubber company were worried about the safety of the shop message boy, Kevin Hill. He had not been seen after the fire broke out and the building was evacuated. However, at 5.30 p.m., it was learned that the lad had been out delivering a message when the fire started.

Several thousand persons in the streets, and more than 200 on neighbouring office buildings, watched as the flames soared through the slate roof of the 45ft stone building.

Firemen used 22 hoses to pour more than 4000 gallons a minute of water into the fire. They succeeded in containing it, although an upstairs lounge in the adjoining Embassy Hotel was badly damaged. Bedrooms on the other side of the wall dividing the burning building had walls too hot to touch.

The Canterbury Frozen Meat Company’s building in Cashel street suffered only slight smoke and heat damage.

The fire began in the alley between the Embassy Hotel and the back of the rubber company building. The managing-director of the Para Rubber Company (Mr D. Davies) said that a cigarette butt might have set alight cartons in the alley. He said that the blaze was at the foot of a light-well which runs from the ground to the top floor of the building on the south side.

Within minutes the flames, fanned by the up-draught, had licked through a vent duct into the mezzanine floor in the shop. Stock, including 2000 paddling pools made of rubber and plastic fabric which had been delivered only two hours before the fire, was destroyed. The rubber and plastic caused swirling black smoke that filled the building and poured out ventilation ducts and the eaves at the top.

Firemen, four of them wearing breathing apparatus, attacked the blaze through the main doors in both Cashel and Manchester streets.

Four firemen were fighting their way to the seat of the fire in the south-west corner of the building, when there was a blow-back of gases and flames.

Blow-Back Fireman G. B. Hutson was assisted out the Manchester street main door by other firemen. He had suffered slight burns to the head and neck in the explosion, which threw him to the floor. He continued fire-fighting and was treated

at the Christchurch Hospital afterwards.

The blow-back blew out several shop front windows on the ground floor. The fire was rapidly mounting through the wooden floors. A fireman, 60ft up on the turntable ladder, was observing the roof for 15 minutes before the fire broke through it. He then gave the signal for water. He kept pouring water in through the roof for more than 35 minutes, but had to stop for a few minutes when he was almost overcome by the swirling smoke. The fire, from the top floor up was fanned by a steady easterly breeze.

On Verandas Firemen attacked the blaze on the second floor from the veranda over the footpath. A blow-back on the second floor blew windows out. Fireman W. Platts, on the veranda at the street corner, suffered a badly cut hand. He swung from the veranda edge by one hand and was helped to the ground.

Firemen on the veranda over Cashel street played water from four hoses through the second and third-storey windows. The lower half of one sash window shot up suddenly, affected by the heat, and the crowd laughed as firemen were sprayed with water bouncing back from the glass. Then the window burst. The firemen gradually forced the fire to the back of the building. They could not fight it from the rear because the building has no rear entrance.

The south-east corner of the building, next to the front of the Embassy Hotel, was where the final blaze, on the third floor occurred. Firemen fought it from the second floor windows and with three hoses, including a twin-hose nozzle.

At this stage, the ground floor was almost clear of smoke and firemen had a dozen hoses inside, playing water through the burnt-out floor to the top of the building.

At 6.15 p.m., water coming down again after being played up inside the building from the ground floor was still very hot, but the fire was beaten. However, firemen stood by all night.