$40,000 Worth Of Timber Burnt

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31831, 8 November 1968, Page 1

$40,000 Worth Of Timber Burnt

A quarter of a million super feet of seasoned rimu timber in a shed 100 ft by 75ft, 30ft high, was destroyed in a big blaze in the city centre last night. The timber was worth $40,000.

Mr W. Williamson, managingdirector of the Williamson Construction Company, Ltd, said that a quarter of an acre of his firm’s two-acre yard at 175187 Montreal Street, had been burned over.

Ten buggies for carrying concrete had been in the shed destroyed by fire and several water pumps for construction jobs had been ruined.

Mr Williamson said that the shed was an old one, but that the machinery and timber destroyed were particularly valuable.

“I do not know what the total loss will be,” he said. “We are insured but the loss of production will hurt. W’e have several big jobs on hand; including work at Manapouri. “The last man left the yard at 5.20 p.m. I wouldn’t have a clue what started it,” said Mr Williamson. The fire was the third in Christchurch timber yards in 21 days. On October 24, a fire caused $200,000 worth of damage to the sawmill of Selwyn Casewood, McVicar, Ltd. That fire was caused by burglars who cut onen the safe but found it empty.

On October 16 fire destroyed $7OOO worth of stacked timber on the property of R. A. Hale, Ltd, joiners, Hazeldean .toad. Firemen on five engines used nine hoses to fight the fire from Montreal Street, Antigua Street and Moorhouse Avenue. A man living in Moorhouse Avenue gave the alarm at 10.10 p.m. He said that the fire was in a 150 ft by 15ft lean-to machinery shed running east to west and butting on to the big shed that housed the stack of a quarter of a million feet of timber.

The fire, fanned by a stiff easterly, jumped from the machinery shed to the timber shed.

The machinery shed was ablaze from end to end and flames were through the corrugated-iron roof of the timber shed when the firemen arrived.

They worked desperately for* 35 minutes before they were certain of confining the fire to the two sheds. The eastern end of the timber shed was only a skeleton

framework, and the timber stack had been devoured by the flames before the fire was completely under control at 11.30 p.m. Sheets of falling corrugated iron from the 30ft high hip roof of the timber shed endangered firemen but none was injured. Traffic officers diverted traffic from the three streets, but a crowd of several hundred drew near on foot as the flames died and steam from the thousands of gallons of water poured into the timber shed rose 150 ft.

“The firemen made a great save,” said Mr Williamson, as he talked to the Mayor (Mr A. R. Guthrey) at midnight.