Interest sparked early

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33540, 22 May 1974, Page 14

Interest sparked early

Mr Laurie Scott, who will retire as a watchroom attendant at the Central Fire Station tomorrow, has had an interest in fires since his home burned down when he was seven. “We lived in the basement of a block of apartments and the cleaners used to throw their old rags, soaked with methylated spirits, down the Stair-well,” he said, - “One night, someone threw a cigar butt down the stairwell after a party and ‘boom’ —the whole building went up.” “The first thing I knew an ugly-looking fireman lifted me up and took me outside. I can remember sitting across the road watching the blaze.” Those were the days of steam-driven fire pumps, but Mr Scott can recall the first time he saw a motor-driven pump .in 1920 or 1921.

“It had a steamer on the back and pulled up alongside the tram I was in,” he said. “I got out of the tram and wandered around it—my mother could not pull me away.”

FIRE CALLS From Canada, where he I was born, Mr Scott arrived ■ in New Zealand 45 years ago land joined the New Brighton Fire Brigade. He has served in the watchroom at the Central Fire Station, where fire calls are received and engines dispatched, for eight years. Two big changes he has seen are the use of breathing apparatus, replacing the need to crawl along the floor of a smoke-filled room with a handkerchief over one’s nose, and fire prevention officers, 'who he said, had cut the number of fire calls by 25 per cent. “GREAT JOB’’ ' “I am quite sure Ballantyne’s fire would not have I occurred if there were fire

prevention officers in those days. They do a great job.” It might be necessary to build another fire station in the city, he said. “Heavy traffic is slowingdown the time it takes an engine to get to a fire. We have a fire station on one side of the citv in Kilmore Street and we may need another on the other side, near Moorhouse Avenue, if we are .to get to fires quickly."