STEAMER ON FIRE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXVII, Issue LXXVII, 2 August 1918, Page 7

STEAMER ON FIRE.

THE DEFENDER DOOMED.

(BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION.) WELLINGTON. Aug. 2. A fire was discovered in the forehold of the small coastal steamer Defender when lying at the King's Wharf, at 11 o'clock this morning. Th e vessel arrived from Lyttelton jesterday afternoon with a cargo of benzine. ' Efforts to subdue the outbreak were unsuccessful, and for the safety of other vessels it was deemed advisable to tow her out into the harbor. Flames and dense volumes of smoke are coming up from below decks, and the steamer is apparently doomed.

The Defender was built of wood in New South Wales in 1901, and is owned by the Westland Shipping Co She 5s a vessel of 185 tons.