DEATH IN FIRE

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 118, 12 February 1940, Page 11

DEATH IN FIRE

Young Girl Trapped In Blazing Hotel WELLINGTON TRAGEDY Firemen Help Others To Escape Trapped by flames and smoke when Hotel Lloyds, Lower Cuba Street, Wellington, caught fire for the second time early on Saturday morning, Miss Kathleen Olive Matthews, aged 17, waitress, was found dead about 20 minutes after the brigade arrived. "I he sixth floor, which covers only half the depth of the building, was gutted and slight damage was done to other floors by water.

Miss Matthews had been dead for some time when found, and it is thought that she died soon after the outbreak occurred. She was the only occupant of the sixth floor. Apparently when she was awakened by the smoke and flames she got out of bed dazed and rushed along a narrow passage for the stairs, but was forced back by the fire. It is assumed that she then ran back past her own room to an end room used for storing bedding, where she was found by brigadesmen. Neither the window of her own bedroom nor the storeroom window was open, and had Miss Matthews smashed either of these she would have been able to step out on to the fire escape to safety. Miss Matthews was missed by other members of the hotel staff soon after the fire started, and strenuous endeavours were made by them to reach her room. Two of them went up as far as the fourth floor in search of her. One was overcome by smoke, and had to be carried out of the building. The brigade first received a call to the hotel between 1 a.m. and 2 a.ni.. when a fire in a chimney was extinguished. The second alarm was given by Mr. 11. Jenkin, a member of the Air Force, who was staying in the hotel. When he arrived back at the hotel about 4 a.m. flames were coming away from the kitchen, and he rang the brigade from a nearby restaurant at 4.5 a.m. An engine arrived within two minutes, but alreadj' the fire had broken through into the lobby and ground floor and was beginning to show through the roof, six floors up. Superintendent Woolley at once sent out a brigade alarm, not so much because of the fire danger, as because of the life danger. Four engines and the escape ladder camo from the Central Station, two from Constable Street, one from Thorndon, and one from Brooklyn. About 60 brigadesmen were called out.

Leads were taken into the hotel from Cuba Street, and also from the back, of the building. The ladder escape was extended to its full length in Cuba Street, and leads were taken up the escape ladders and wall’s at the rear of the hotel to tackle the fire on the top floor,. already a full furnace. As the ground floor fire was subdued more leads were taken from floor to floor, till the final turns of the stairs to the highest living quarters were reached. Beyond this the brigadesmen could not go. The brigade gained control of the fire on each landing except the top within minutes, in a building through which fire would have swept with uncheckable speed had it not been caught at each source at once. As a save, under such conditions, the work was remarkable indeed, but the loss of life has taken from the success. Guests Rescued. There were 30 or more boarders in the hotel. Few of them had reached the ground floor when the brigade arrived, and the immediate task was to get them down the narrow, turning stairs in the dark —for the lights had failed —past points of fire on every landing and over the leads of hose and through drenching water. One elderly woman refused to leave, and had to be carried out. There were many alarms and fears that all the roo.uis had not been cleared, and the brigadesmen made repeated visits to the bedrooms on the various floors. The salvage section of the brigade used a great number of waterproof sheets ami covered furniture, bedding, and guests’ belongings on each floor so effectively that the loss is quite small.

Hotel Lloyds, formerly the Columbia Hotel, was one of the first of the larger private hotels to be built in Wellington. It was taken over only recently by Air. R. S. Wilson, Wellington, who renovated and refurnished the building. It is believed that, the fire started on the ground floor at or close to a fired hot-water furnace in the kitchen. Almost immediately above the furnace and running to the top of the building is a 'disused dumb-waiter shaft. The shaft is framed in timber, and is sur-

rounded by plasterboard about a quarter of an inch thick. The flames roared fro.m the ground to the sixth floor, probably in seconds only. They broke through at. every floor and at the top mushroomed out. among the dry wooden framing of the loft at the head of the stairs and the lift. On some, of the floors the fire broke into the lift well also. Here the well surround is of light cardboard wallboarding. Immediately adjoining is a second narrower winding staircase, not used by guests, and in fact, not clear of encumbrances. The dumb-waiter, the winding stairs, and the wallboarded lift well formed a single chimney to lead, the flames the full height of the hotel, in which lath and plaster partitioning and wooden flooring and joists are the main interior construction. The brigade certainly did magnificent work in cheeking the fire in such material.