HOUSE DESTROYED

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 110, 22 April 1936, Page 6

HOUSE DESTROYED

Early Morning Fire at Havelock North

OCCUPANTS’ HURRIED ESCAPE

A nine-roomed house occupied by Mi R. D. Vance, and situated a little distance on the Hastings side of the Havelock bridge, was completely destroyed by a fire to which the Havelock Fire Brigade was called out at 1.40 o’clock this morning, Mr and Mrs V ance and their small child, who were the only occupants of the house, had to make a hurried escape, and Mr Vance, after making a dash through the smoke into the child’s room, had to get out with it through a window.

Everything in the house was destroyed, and although there was a small insurance on the furniture and personal effects, Mr and Mrs Vance will lose heavily.

Apparently the fire broke out in or near a fire that had been burning during the night in the sitting-room, and the occupants’ first warning that anything was amiss was their being wakened by the smoke and tho noise of the flames.

When the brigade was summoned the fire had full control of the building, and there was no water supply available. Tho best that the brigade could do was to save the washhouse by means of pouring buckets of water over it. A high wind made the firemen’s task altogether hopeless. The house was owned by a Hastings syndicate. Details of insurances were not available to-day.