A RACE FOR LIFE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 23, 28 January 1928, Page 11

A RACE FOR LIFE

NARROW ESCAPE OF FIREMEN BIG CONFLAGRATION IN SYDNEY (From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, 20th January. After a comparatively long spell, a big fire broke ont in Sydney on Sunday afternoon, and it was one of the most sensational and spectacular seen in the city for years past. It completely destroyed Wynyard Building, of eight stories, in Carrington street, not far from the General Post Office, and just round thte corner from the New South Wales and Commercial Banks. The damage is estimated at about £100,----000. A stiff southerly was blowing at the time, and in a very short time the building was a roaring inferno, and cinders ■were being showered over city buildings in the vicinity as if from a volcano. During the height of the fire an enormous mass of masonry, comprising the whole of the front of the top floor, came crashing down with a terrific roar, and the firemen working below "had barely time to escape to nafety. ■ Then eight firemen appeared at a window, with flames leaping all round them. They had been trapped, the flames spreading at a tremendoui speed. A ladder was immediately set up, and the eight men just had time to escape through the window before the big crash of masonry occurred. They, and twenty other firemen standing in front of the building and working the looses missed death by a few seconds. Tragedy was also naTrowly averted in another direction. In residential apartments adjoining, the police found three men and a woman dozing in their rooms, quite oblivious of the outbreak, and as they reached the street level, portion of the side wall of Wynyard Building fell and wrecked the rooms they had just vacated. Meanwhile, portion of the wall facing Wynyard lane bulged outward; then it fell, crashing upon the rear of the Hotel Victoria, smashing part of the roof and tearing gaping holes in the walls. A second fire was thus started, but the firemen, working from roofs in George street, were able to get it under control quickly. Minor outbreaks occurred in other buildings close by, but they were soon qnelled. Australia House, a large building, the lower floors of which are ocenpied by the Australian Drug Company, 'was saved by automatic sprinklers, one hundred of which are installed in the building. A good deal of damage, however, was done^by flooding, i The fire has once again drawn attention to the danger that faces Sydney in certain of its busiest centres. If, for instance, an outbreak should occur in one of the buildings in the block bounded by George, Pitt, King, and JUarket streets, where some of the biggest retail houses are situated, who can say what might result! Most of them are fitted with automatic sprinklers, but not all, aiid the question of compulsion in tins connection is bound to crop up again. One thing ia certain, and that is that the Fire Chiefs live in constant dread of a conflagration in. this and certain other parts'of the city.