FOURTH FIRE IN SMALL AREA

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31906, 6 February 1969, Page 1

FOURTH FIRE IN SMALL AREA

Detectives are investigating a fire which gutted most of an old, unoccupied house at 16 Hillview Street yesterday. Three other fires in the area in the last five months are still being investigated.

On October 6, at 5 p.m., a fire destroyed another old, unoccupied house at 14 Hillview Street and damaged the house at 16 Hillview Street. On November 15 the rear of a house at 41 Leeds Street, again old and unoccupied, was severely damaged in a fire which it was believed had begun in a sofa.

Hillview Street is a continuation of Leeds Street, which runs east from the southern end of Fitzgerald Avenue. The fourth fire detectives were asked to investigate because arson was suspected was at the factory of Garand Products, Ltd, on January 24. In that fire damage to the building alone was estimated at 840,000. The factory is next door to 41 Leeds Street, and all four fires occurred within a street length of 400 yards.

Firemen were called to yesterday's fire at 3 p.m., and two machines from the Headquarters station were sent. To control the fire firemen had to strip much of the iron from the roof.

A spokesman for Kennedy Holdings, the owner of the building, said that he was not prepared to say whether the fire had been deliberately lit. However, the house, which had been unoccupied for more than eight months because of earthquake damage, had been clean and tidy. His

daughter had been there a fortnight ago and taken a bath and a hand basin. All had been in order then.