FIRE TRAGEDY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 35, 10 February 1940, Page 12

FIRE TRAGEDY

GIRL'S LIFE LOST

TRAPPED ON SIXTH

FLOOR

PRIVATE CITY HOTEL

A sad * fire tragedy occurred early this morning when Miss Kathleen Olive Matthews, aged 17, employed as a waitress at the Hotel Lloyds, Lower Cuba Street, was trapped by smoke and fire. on the sixth floor. Her body was found after -the fire was subdued. A particularly sad feature is that the window of her room faced directly upon a fire escape from which she could have been j rescued easily had her presence been I known. The sixth -floor does not cover the full depth of the building. It is used as staff quarters, but last night Miss Matthews was alone on this floor. It I seems likely that 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, of course, was turned back. For some.reason she ran on past her own room to an end room used as a store for bedding', and here her body was found. Neither the ' window of her bedroom nor that in the storeroom was open; Both are of the type in which i the two sashes are connected, and swing partially open on an angle. Had Miss Matthews broken her window and stepped out on to the escape she could have descended with safety. The brigade received the call by telephone from the hotel at 4.5 a.m., and the first engines from the Central Station arrived within two or three minutes, but already the fire had broken through into the lobby on the 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 on account of the fire danger, as of the life danger. Four engines and the escape ladder came from the Central Station, two from Constable Street, one from Thorndon, and one from Brooklyn. About sixty 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 walks at the rear of the hotel to tackle the fire on the top floor, alrady a full furnace. As the ground floor fire was subdued more leads were taken from floor to floor, until the final turns of the stairs to the highest living quarters 'c reached. Beyond this the brigadesmen could not go higher. 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 their success. TAKING THE GUESTS TO SAFETY. There were thirty 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 rvery 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 rooms 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 and covered furniture, bedding, and guests' belongings on each floor so effectively that the loss is quite small. A CHIMNEY FOR FIRE. The Hotel Lloyds, formerly the Columbia Hotel, is one of the oldest ot the larger hotel or private hotel buildings in Wellington. Its structure and design in no respect, conform with what are required as the minimum for hotel or boarding-house construction today.' v 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 surrounded by plasterboard about a quarter of an inch thick. The flames roared from 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 seme 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 checking the fire in such material. The owner and occupier of the build-

ing is Mr. R. S. Wilson, Wellington. The insurances upon building and contents are not available today. j LITTER ON ADJOINING ROOFS. The state of the fiat roofs of two buildings near the hotel is an indication of risks unnecessarily imposed upon the brigade and the city. One was used as a store for crates and cases which have evidently accumulated for years, ready to go up in flames from brands or even sparks. Nearer the hotel the doors of an attic filled with cases and lumber were wide open and more cases were piled up about the parapet*.