CASEIN FACTORY BURNED

Matamata Record, Volume XX, Issue 1875, 11 October 1937, Page 5

CASEIN FACTORY BURNED

BLAZE AT KIWITAHI

Saturday Morning Outbreak

An outbreak of fire about halfpast ten on Saturday morning rer suited in the total destruction of the Kiwitahi factory of the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy situated a quarter of a mile from the Kiwitahi Railway Station, between Morrinsville and Walton.

Built as a cheese factory about 1920, the Kiwitahi dairy factory had at one time 25 suppliers, but of re-, cent years with the increasing popularity of home separation its . suppliers had fallen to nine. A few years ago cheese-making was discontinued, and since then the Kiwitahi, factory has made casein. The first to notice that anything was amiss were members of Mr, H., G. Johns’ family, whose homestead is directly opposite the factory, and only about fifty yards away. Mr. George Johns ran over the road and, gave warning to the manager, Mr, G. Woods, who, with his son, Mr. A. Woods, were at work in the factory, in a few minutes other settlers, noned by telephone or attracted by the column of smoke, were on the scene. -uoi.r.:

BUCKET BRIGADE’S EFFORTS A bucket brigade set to work in a valiant endeavour to check the spread of' the fire from the west6rh side of the factory, near the boiler room. About 30 'men worked desperately, some of them clambering up a ladder to the roof in their efforts to empty their buckets’ on to the centre of the fire.' ;

i The only Water available was iri ; the factory tank. There was no fife; hose, and the efforts of the bucket 1; brigade were in vain. The building, With its wooden walls, burned fiercely and- within an hour all that re-'' mained of the factory was a heap of smoking ashes 1 ' and twisted machinery..’'.’- 1 • •'

When it was seen that the building was doomed volunteers carried out a set of scales and two separators dsed for skimming the cream before the milk was put into thy-yaty casein-makirfg. " About 10 bags of casein were also -salvaged, and a number of cans and vats which were easily shifted, 'i . i ■• ! i Carried by the westerly breeze the „flames spread tq,y:.patck o£|f errand,* seruif' between the factory and the creek, with the result that about two acres of vacant land was burnt over’: fortunately the flames were not blown towards the manager’s house, which.,is only about 50 yards to the rear of the factory, but the bucket brigade took the- precaution of splashing the front of the housed with water. /. MILK DIVERTED TO WAITOA&

Among those early on the scene were Mi\ A. Hayward, of Ngarua, a director of the New Zealand Co-oper-ative Dairy Co., Ltd., and Mr. H. V. Wells, chairman of the Kiwitahi sup; pliers’ committee. It was quickly arranged that the daily supply of milk from Kiwitahi should be taken to the company’s Waitoa dried milk factory. Two lorries are running night and morning.

The three vats of milk “went up in smoke,” but the cream from the morning supply had been sent away to the company’s Morrinsville factory earlier in the morning. A considerable quantity of casein had been railed away on the previous day, and there was only one day’s make on har.J.

The present manager, Mr. Woods, had only been at Kiwitahi for six weeks.

Of interest to Matamata is the fact that the Kiwitahi factory was built from materials that were in a cheese factory in the Matamata district which was closed after the opening of the Waharoa dried milk factory. The factory building was valued at £2500 and the plant at £2OOO. Both were insured with Lloyds.