COMPLETE BURN-OUT

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 104, 29 October 1925, Page 4

COMPLETE BURN-OUT

FLOUR MILL GUTTED

VALUABLE MACHINERY DESTROYED.

(01 TELEGRAPH.—WIESS ASSOCIATION.) DUNEDIN, 28th October

A destructive fire occurred this morning about 4 o'clock, when Stevcns's mill, North Uunedin, owned by Harraway raid Co., was gutted." The brigade, on arriving at the scene, of the outbreak, found llames and vast volumes of smoke issuing from the central portion of the building, and shortly afterwards the whole place was a raging inferno, * A big motor pump and another crew from South Dunedin were sent for, water being obtained from ' the Lcith, which skirts the mill. It was impossible, however, with even eight leads at work, to do anothing more than confine the outbreak to the main buildiiigs. Tho work of the brigade was greatly hampered throughout by tho dangerous bulging of tho walls owing- to the tremendous heat.

_ A visit to the scene of the conflagration' later revealed four gaunt walls, a mass of bricks and twisted corrugated iron, and a smouldering substance winch experts denned as flour. Tho llames had swept clean through the building from one end to the other. The only possible salvage appeared to be in a largo quantity of wheat and oats stacked in sacks in a storeroom in tho main building. The machinery, which, it is understood, was the most up to date of its kind procurable, was a sorry mass of iron and steel. The damage done here alone probably amounts to many thousands. The origin of the fire, which must have been burning for some hours before the alarm was given, can only be a matter of conjecture at present.

The buildings and plant were insured in the Guardian office, th© amount of the risk being £24,000. "I would not like to say that £20,000 would cover the damage," said Mr. Harraway, senior, this afternoon, when asked to givo an estimate of the destruction wrought. "Things are in such a terrible mess," he added, "that nobody will bo able to say exactly what damage has been done. All I know is that it is a complete burn-out except for two stores."-