FATAL BACH FIRE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 66, 14 September 1940, Page 7

FATAL BACH FIRE

EXPLOSION OF A STOVE

MIXED PETROL & KEROSENE

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, September 13. The danger of mixing petrol with kerosene for use in primus stoves was mentioned by Constable McKenzie and a storekeeper, Henry George Carter, when giving evidence at an inquest into the death of William James Morris, labourer, aged 52, who died at the Auckland Hospital on August 28. Mr. Morris lived in a bach at Palm Beach, Waiheke Island. The building caught lire and was burned down on the night of August 24, Morris, who was within, receiving burns which proved fatal. While waiting to be sent to hospital he said that a primus stove had exploded. Constable McKenzie, who searched the debris after the fire, found a partlymelted primus stove without a filter cap on. He thought that Morris must have used a mixture of petrol- and kerosene, and it had exploded. Kerosene by itself would not explode. The Coroner found that Morris had died from shock, following upon burns received when his bach was burned down. ,