A RECORD YEAR

Evening Star, Issue 24081, 30 December 1941, Page 2

A RECORD YEAR

FIRE GALLS FOR 1941 For the year about to close the Dunedin City and suburban fire stations have experienced a_ busy 12 months compared with previous years, a total of 709 calls having been answered up to last evening. This constitutes a record, and includes an epidemic of malicious false alarms, totalling 78. In practically every case these were caused by juveniles, many of whom were apprehended by the police and dealt with by the Children’s Court, and others of more tender years admonished. Considerable inconvenience was the lot of the brigade in respect of one particular street alarm in a hill suburb, but this particular nuisance was finally tracked down arid the errors of his ways brought home to the offender. Two fires involving loss of life broke out within two months, the first involving the death of an elderly lady in a house fire at St. Claii*, and the second being the grandstand fire at Logan Park, when a man was burned to death. Up to this time the last fatal fire recorded was as far back as June, 1930. A total of 148 outbreaks involved damage to property, the most serious being the grandstand fire, and the gutting of Sargood’s factory behind the railway station. Throughout the year’s operations only one case of injury sustained by a fireman was recorded, and after being treated for shock he was speedily discharged from the Hospital. All the street alarm boxes and automatic systems throughout the city have given sterling service in summoning the brigade, false alarms received from automatic sources totalling 74, while the 31 accidental calls were caused for the most part by jets of steam and excessive heat within factory and warehouse premises setting off the automatic alarms. Chimney fires were considerably in excess of last year’s total, these amounting to 238, while gorse, grass, and rubbish fires (106), and justifiable false alarms (-11) maintained their average totals,