FIRE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIX, Issue 11554, 15 April 1898, Page 6

FIRE.

AT AIESSES HEYWOOD AND CO.’S,

At about twenty minutes to, two o’clock yesterday afternoon some lads who were in Cathedral Square noticed smoke and a jet of flame issuing from one of the southern windows in the top floor of Messrs Hey wood and Co.’s office. An alarm was given, and the engines got on the spot with all speed, but although only a little over five minutes elapsed between the time the alarm was given and when the hose was got to work, the fire had spread all over the top floor of that part of the wooden building lately occupied by Miss Carr’s Shorthand School, and a dense volume of smoke poured from the windows and crevices. As soon, however, as the Deluge and Extinguisher got to work the fire was controlled in about ten minutes, before the ground floor offices were injured at all, except by water, although the top floor was practically gutted. The fire is supposed to have started at the head of the staircase in a room occupied by Air C. A. Seager, electrician, the representative of Alessrs T. Turnbull, Wellington. A bicycle which was in the room had the saddle burnt off, the tyres being apparently uninjured, but on examination the rubber covers were found to be of the consistency of treacle. All the office furniture and books in Messrs Heywood and Co.’s office were removed out of the building before the arrival of the engines, the same precaution being taken by Mr Nicholls, watchmaker and jeweller, and Air T. Palmer, fruiterer, who occupied shops next door. The building is an old one, having been erected about thirty-four years ago, and the property belongs to the estate of the late Isaac Luck. The insurances on the building are—J. Heywood and Co.’s office £llOO, and Mr Badham’s office, next door, £3OO, both in the Norwich Union, for which Messrs Heywood and Co. are agents. There are no insurances on Air Seager’s stock, and everything in the rooms occupied by him was practically destroyed. Messrs Fuhrmann’s warehouse, adjoining, escaped altogether. A great crowd of spectators congregated during the progress of the fire, and some danger was apprehended to them by the pieces of glass which were flying in all directions from the windows and verandah before’ the hose, but fortunately no one was hit. The top floor, with the exception of Mr Seager’s two rooms, was unoccupied, and tho latter presented the appearance of having borne the brunt o? the fire, Miss Carr’s old rooms, being, but for the-ceiling, merely scorched and thq.

windows broken, Mr Berkeley,'an employe in Messrs Heywood’s office, states that he was upstairs shortly after twelve o’clock, and there was no sign of any fire then.