Disastrous Timber Yard Fire

Manawatu Times, Volume 67, Issue 95, 23 April 1942, Page 4

Disastrous Timber Yard Fire

£50,000 Damage to Kauri Timber Plant

EMPLOYEES INJURED IJf NARROW ESCAPES Per J*reae Association. AUCKLAND, April 22. Irreplaceable machinery, some of which had been installed only a fortnight previously, was destroyed and several persons had narrow escape* from being engulfed in the flames wuea a lire gutted a large part of the timber yard and factory of the Kauri Timber Company at Freeman’s Bay this afternoon. The department* destroyed were the sawmill, planing mill, joinery, factory and box department. Heavy stocks of timber in the pond and an adjoining yard were saved, but the value of these were email in comparison , *'rih the property destroyed, i The insurance cover on the buildings, , machinery and stock was reported by , tbe New Zealand Insurance Company to be £62,000. In the absence of the manager (Mr. J. J. Jackson), who was visiting the milling areas at Coromandel the managing-director (Mr. G. Trippner) was unable to give any indication of the insurances on the gutted portions of the premises, but it was clear that the loss was upwards of £50,000. Only last week the firm began work on large military contracts, including hutments, a number of which were ready to go out. These with hundreds of thousands of feet of timber prepared for others were lost. The most remarcabl* ie«ture of ths fire was the rapidity with which it spread. Within seconds of the men in the boiler-room cellar noticing a slight , fire the combustion spreading through the air in almost explosive fashion, i enveloped the cellar and burst into the j first floor. [ The ground floor of the Kauri Timber Company’s premises was occupied by the planing mill on the west side, the . band-saw department in the centre and , tbe box department to the east. Ail these were gutted as was the joinery fz.'i'.jiy which was laid out above them. A high and thick brick wall of great age lying to the east of the box department stopped the spread of the fire, saving the timber yard which lies on its other side. The fire swept through the gutted i section over a width of a hundred yard* and for the full depth from the*Fanshawe Street frontage to the waterfront. While several workmen in the factory agreed that the fire began not later than 1.15 p.m., it was not until p.m. that the city fire brigade received the first alarm from a street box. Apparently the lightning like spread of the flames gave each department the impression that the outbreak was in another section from which the alarm would already Slave been given. The brigade arrived within four i minutes of the sounding of the alarm, but by then nothing could be done for the burning buildings and the firemen were fully extended to stop the spreadi ing lo the premises of the Levlandi O’Brien Company to the west of the , Kauri Company's open yard to the east r and along the staging of the wharf [ where the towboat Lyttelton was for a time threatened. I Of tbe 70 men working in the build* t ing almost all narrowly escaped with . their lives and all lost their street clothing, money, kits and tools. The fact ’ that there were half-a-dozen stairway* 1 connecting the upper and lower floors with three main exits to Fanshaw* Street and another at the rear to th* waterfront made it just possible for JO ' men on the ground floor and 50 in th* • joinery factory above to get clear. • Six persons were taken to the general • hospital for treatment besides other* J treated on the spot. The only seriou* cases were William D. Thompson, machinist, aged 55 years, of \Veßtmer3, • who sustained a fractured pelvis when he jumped from the upper floor, and > George Menzies, auxiliary fireman, aged • 32, who was hit on the back of th* 1 head by the flying end of an overhead L electric cable which had burned in two 1 while still alive, lie suffered shock and burns on the neck and abrasions to th* ; face. For the first time in his fire fighting service deputy superintendent C. A. ; MacKenzie was knocked out when a big lead got out of control for a few seconds. The jet shot over the roadway ‘ knocking several persons down and th* | nozzle repeatedly struck Superintendent MacKenzie in the stomach and he was rendered unconscious for a short time. 1 Half a dozen men made their escape 1 from the upper floor in the nick of tim* 1 through the services of two passing motorists hearing crie* of < *help. M | They stopped and placed a ladder against the blazing frontage. Heavy smoke was billowing all round the men above and a few were in a state of collapse when they reached the ground. No sooner were they all clear than th* ladder itself caught alight. The St. John Ambulance Brigade set. h up a station in a shed opposite tbe fir* land treated a number of people for minor burns and injuries. Among them were William Elliott, a fireman who . sprained his anKle; Bernard Stevenson, b a machinist, who was struck by falling n timber and stunned and overcome by - smoke at the edge of the fire. He was - dragged to safety by an E.P.B. medical - worker. i * —" TIMBER COMPANY'S EMPLOYER MISSING l GRAVE ANXIETY FELT i t AUCKLAND, April 22. Grave anxiety was felt to-night for the safety of one of the employees of Kauri Timber Company who was working on the upper floor when the fir* which razed the premises broke out. He is Percy Reginald Wells, aged 63. The roll call at the Are in the afternoon was considered to have satisfactorily accounted for all the men who ba*d been t in the building but when Wells failed T to return to his home in the evening inquiries were instituted by his r*la- \ tlves- . Radio broadcasts asking for informas tion and extensive inquiries by th* ' police produced no result and at a late [ hour the police were still making inv*s tigations. Mr. Wells’s son said hi t father was lame through an iljtr, which had produced a shortening of on* 9 leg. In addition his nervous condition 1 had for some time been unsatisfactory. 7 Mr. Natan Scheinwald was a visitor b to Palmersion North yesterday, making - arrangements for the visit of Robert Wilson, singer, and his concert party.