OUR WATER SUPPLY AND FIRE EXTINCTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9721, 17 January 1895, Page 4

OUR WATER SUPPLY AND FIRE EXTINCTION.

When the high-level reservoirs were ] made at Kyber Pass and Mount Eden, j it was confidently predicted that where- j ever a fire might occur within the area commanded, there would be ample pressure of water to extinguish it. A few weeks ago, two fires occurred at the same time, one at the corner of Karangahape Road, and the other at the Lunatic Asylum, Avondale, and at both places the water barely trickled from the hose, in such a feeble way as to be quite ineffective. All who know anything of fires know that they are extinguished, not so much by water, as by the pressure of water, that if there is no pressure water is not of much use. At the Karangahape Road fire, a considerable proportion of the damage was done in the faces of the firemen, simply because the water could not reach high enough. At the Asylum, the fire might have been quickly extinguished at any time within an hour after its discovery if there had been any pressure of water. But so feeble was the stream that the men using the hose could put their mouths to the nozzle and take a drink when they became thirsty. The fire-extinguishing apparatus at the Asylum has been pronounced by experts to be sufficient, and there is an effective organisation in the staff. So great a destruction of public property demands a fall inquiry into why the measures taken to deal with fire should have failed. Some explanation has been made that certain valves were not opened, and certain other valves were not closed. It is the duty of the Council to get all the facts before them, and to take precautions that the mistakes which prevented the supplies from the high-level reservoirs being available shall not occur again.