Five die; three only “fair” after fire

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32788, 13 December 1971, Page 1

Five die; three only “fair” after fire

(Now Zealand Prate Association) WELLINGTON, December 12. Five persons are dead and another three were in only fair condition in the Wellington Hospital last night after a fire in a Wellington private hotel early on Saturday morning.

At the height of the fire, elderly residents jumped from windows and fire escapes, and firemen rescued five from the roof. z ■ ] Last night, the police had released the names of only two of the five dead. They were Brian Chwy, aged 37, who '< Jhad been a resident of . the hotel for about two years, and Robert Joshua Gardiner, ■ aged about 65, of Wellington. Those in a fair condition in hospital are the owner of the hotel, Mrs E. R. Hallam, believed to be in her 80s, Mr William John Courts, aged 60, and Mr Harold Williams, aged 65. Mr William Roger Ains-

worth, aged 83, is in a satisfactory condition.

Smoking in bed A police spokesman said today that an elderly man fell asleep while smoking in bed. He awakened, felt his mattress smouldering and hurled it from the window of his room on the firststorey. The mattress landed on the roof of a storeroom, an extension of the back of the building. The man said he poured a few buckets of water on to the mattress, and then satisfied it was out went baqk to sleep. The mpttress probably kept smouldering, burning a sheet of corrugated-plastic sheeting in the roof and then fell on to the furniture below, the spokesman said.

It kept burning and built up heat for about an hour before the fire spread to the floor above.

There were 49 persons living in the hotel, which was not badly damaged. Fourteen of them were taken to hospital injured, 10 of them ' unconscious. Trapped in alley It took firemen and the police 40 minutes to evacuate the hotel. Three of the unconscious were found huddled together in a small bedroom. Four were rescued from the roof and 10 were trapped by a locked gate in an alley beside the building, until freed by firemen using axes. There was no sign of life or smoke when the first of the fire engines from five Wellington stations arrived on the scene. “Then all of a sudden there were people scuttling like ants all over the place,” said a fire brigade spokesman. Many of the survivors were rescued by a young policeman, Constable G. P. Johnson, who was on the beat when he heard the fire alarm in the hotel.

The constable directed the evacuation until the fire

engines arrived. There was a fire at the hotel four years ago.