COMPLAINT AGAINST FIRE BRIGADE

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 162, 5 April 1927, Page 9

COMPLAINT AGAINST FIRE BRIGADE

RECENT GORSE FIRE AT yOGELTOWN. . . L .It was stated at a meeting of the East Vogeltown Progressive Association last night that , the Constable Street Fire Brigade refused to turn out cn a recent occasion when called a second time to suppress a gorse fire in the Vogeltown district which they had failed to properly extinguish when the first alarm had been ’ answered. Those' present at the meeting' declared that shortly after -the brigade had returned to the station the tire rekindled into flame, burning with more fury than flame, while : two houses were placed in great danger of being destroyed. One of- the local residents, it was stated, telephoned for the brigade, but lie was asked, “Is that the- fire we’ve been to before ?” and- the- receiver was hung up. The fire engine however, failed to appear, and it wa3 only by the efforts: of willing (helpers, who left their beds in the early hours of the morning, that the flames were finally - exainguished . and . the houses saved from' destruction. “It was a cruel and inhuman act,” declared one lady at last night’s meeting, “and the women occupants-of the houses were so terrified that they would not spend the night in them.”