COTTAGE FIRE TRAGEDY

Greymouth Evening Star, 31 May 1928, Page 2

COTTAGE FIRE TRAGEDY

EVIDENCE AT INQUEST. (Per Press Association.) HAWERA, May 30. “That the deceased met their deaths by being burned in a fire, caused by. a defective stove, aided by ..a. strong southerly wind, and the very inflammable nature of the lining of the house,” was the verdict of the jury this afternoon, at the inquest concerning the seven victims who perished when a farmhouse at Adafata, about seven miles from Hawera, was destroyed. at .midnight last Thursday. The deceased were: Albert Wooler, aged 40; his five children: Ruby aged 12, Ellen 11, Ray 9, Albion 7, and Daphne 6; and an employee, Charles Bernard Parnell, aged 13. “The door handle was so hot I could not hold it after twice approaching it. and I was forced to leave owing to the intense heat from the blazing house,” said the principal witness, Peter Wooler, brother of the deceased. . Wooler said he had a habit of having meals at the house, but he slept in a, tent in a. gully about thjree chains distant. About 7 o’clock he had gone to his tent, and a little before midnight he was roused by noises similar to the cracks of pearifle shots, as if exploded in a fire. He saw the house in flames. He was able to get to the rear, where the fire, had evidently .started. A southerly gale was raging. After kicking at. the front door., .which -had been barricaded to keep out the draught, and after calling out, without response from the inmates . of the house, lie roused a. neighbour living about 300 yards away. The latter jumped through his bedroom window just in time to see Wooler’s house collapse. Witness said the house consisted of three bedrooms and a kitchen, the rooms being lined with felt, made chiefly of tarred paper. The house contained only one fireplace, that being a stove in the kitchen. There was no hearth, the flooring boards reaching to the edge of the stove, which rested on soil, with the front portion supported by a piece of wooden scantling. Directly before the oven door there was a crack in. the flooring, down which embers may have fallen. Holes in. the bottom of the ash-pan made it defective, and the timber support had been charred previous to the night of the fire. The places in ruins where the remains of the children’s bodies were found indicated that they) had not left their rooms, but Wooler, senior, who had been sleeping wi .11 the youngest child in the front room, was found lying before the stove in. the kitchen. Six other witnesses gave evidence, including Mrs. Wooler, who, with the two youngest children of the family, bad gone in the morning for medical treatment to Hawera, where she and the children with her had spent the night. ALLEGED INCENDIARISM GISBORNE, May 31.. Following the destruction by fire of a five-roomed dwelling at Ruatoria on May 17 two native girls, aged thiTr teen and seventeen will appear before the Court next week, charged with incendiarism. The dwelling was owned by Mata Taumauna, and with its contents, was totally destroyed. NEW BRIGHTON LOSS. CHRISTCHURCH, May 31. Fire destroyed a house and shop in Sea view Road, New Brighton, early this morning. The tenant, Mrs J Carney, had a narrow escape. She was awakened by smoke and had to jump from the verandah, injuring her back. She is the widow of Detective Carney.