JUST IN TIME

Evening Star, Issue 22626, 19 April 1937, Page 8

JUST IN TIME

DISCOVERY OF FIRE OUTBREAK IN TIMBER FACTORY Starling in the shaving house and spreading to the timber racks, fire destroyed several hundred feet of dressed timber at the premises of the Southland and Otago Co-operative Timber Co. Ltd. shortly after 11. o’clock this morning. But for a particularly smart save by the City Brigade a disastrous loss would have been the result of the outbreak, for it was checked just in time from spreading throughout the entire building, which is a storehouse for tinder-dry timber. The brigade was handicapped by the distance of the building, which faces the foreshore, from the water mains in Anderson’s Bay road. Altogether 900 ft of hose was coupled up, a task completed expeditiously by the firemen in their race against time'. The alarm was received by telephone from the timber factory at 11.18, and a machine and the pump were quickly on the scene. The corner of the building was blazing strongly, and tho timber surrounding a large hopper was well alight. Salvage sheets were placed over the machinery surrounding the fire, and though it was fanned by a strong breeze, the men working under Third Officer Laidlaw soon had it under conThe water pressure was excellent. Though stacks of timber were completely destroyed, several piles were only charred at one end. The damage is assessed at over £BO. The building was insured, Tho cause of the fire i? a mystery, for there was no machinery in the immediate vicinity of the timber racks. The outbreak started in tho shaving house, and it is considered that it had been smouldering for some time before discovered.