FIRES AT WINNIPEG

Hawera Star, Volume L, 26 June 1930, Page 5

FIRES AT WINNIPEG

INCENDIARIES AT WORK. SERIES OF NIGHT ALARMS. WINNIPEG, June 12. Organised gangs of foreign agitators last night made repeated and almost incredibly bold attempts to burn down the city of Winnipeg. Fanned by a strong wind, many fires raged for five hours until drenching rain brought relief and daylight drove the incendiaries to cover. The citizens of the prairie metropolis spent a night of terror, and only a heroic battle by firemen, police, militiamen and citizens prevented the burning of the entire city. it was just before midnight that the firm alarm was sounded, and from more than a dozen places the city was menaced in the next two hours. The main outbreak was in the lumber yards of the Caledonia Box Company. . . The next call came from the Prairie City Oil Company’s plant, which soon was an inferno. The firemen’s work was hampered by the explosion of sevferal liquor stills sequestered in sheds and small warehouses.

Large drums of oil exploded, showering the vicinity with burning oil and .suffocating clouds of smoke.