DANGEROUS BLAZE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 72, 26 March 1940, Page 9

DANGEROUS BLAZE

FURNITURE FACTORY

WIND LUCKILY ABSENT

(By Telegraph^-Prees Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day.

But for the fact that there was a flat calm this morning, Christchurch would probably have seen one of the most destructive fires in its history when the Harcourt Furniture Factory, in Leeds Street Linwood. went up in flames shortly after 6 a.m. The factory was totally destroyed, together with a considerable stock of finished furniture. Twenty-seven employees lost all their tools. How the fire started is a mystery as the factory had been closed since 5 p.m. on Thursday. Had wind been blowing from any quarter it would have been practically impossible to prevent the blaze from spreading. On the last and west sides of t-he factory are the yards of Keighley and Co., stacked high with timber, on the south side are the closelypacked wooden houses of Leeds Street, and on the north side is King's Avenue, another narrow street with a double row of old wooden houses separated from one another by only a few feet. When neighbours were awakened by the glare and by the barking of a dog in a backyard neighbouring on the factory premises, the building was already well alight, and within a few minutes flames were leaping fifty feet into the air. The side wall of the end house in King's Avenue was only about four or five yards from the burning factory and had already begun to smoulder when the occupants were awakened by their neighbours. A hose was played, on the smouldering wall of this house only just in time.

In Keighley and Co.'s yard, on the eastern side of the factory, a stack of timber had begun to blaze and the wall of a big shed packed with timber was smouldering. These extensions of the fire were, however, quickly dealt with.

The factory soon burned itself out, leaving a wilderness of charred timber with woodworking machines standing amongst it. .