Fire Sensation at Auckland: Elderly Woman’s Grave Plight

Northern Advocate, 30 July 1938, Page 8

Fire Sensation at Auckland: Elderly Woman’s Grave Plight

C Special to “Northern Advocate. AUCKLAND, This Day. r E'RAPPED BY A WALL OF FLAME 1 HAT BLOCKED ALL EXIT FROM 1 THE UPPER STOREY BEDROOM IN WHICH SHE SLEPT, AND TERRIFIED BY FLAMES SHOOTING FROM WINDOWS BEHIND HER, MRS ANNIE ELIZABETH MALTBY, AN ELDERLY MARRIED WOMAN, JUMPED FROM THE VERANDAH ROOF OF HER HOME AT ST. JAMES’S SQUARE. THIS MORNING, * She was taken to hospital, sutler lag from severe injuries. Alto in hospital arc her daughter. Alice Margaret, agea 15. and her son. Walter Albert, aged 18, Both were injured in escaping from the blazing shell of the wooden house.

Mrs Maltby was awakened by crackling flames and dense smoke, at 1 1 about 1.30. From her bedroom, in the j. front of the second storey, she screamed to her husband, who rushed to the front of the house and found the sitting-room filled with a solid I sheet of flame. The mother became 1 terrified, and jumped, falling on to aj picket fence. She was also seriously burned. Two of the children were not injured. The house was completely gutted. It was owned by Mrs F. W. Ockleford and insured with the Standard Company. One of the girls jumped into the arms of a spectator in the street. The central fire station received two calls, and had an engine at the scene of the fire a few hundred yards away within a minute and a half. The house was burning furiously, the flames spreading to wooden houses crowded close on either side. Despite the fact that one house was only inches away from the Maltby's the brigade saved it. Both sons, who are studying engineering, lost books valued at £?0.