FIRE TRAGEDY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23109, 6 August 1938, Page 9

FIRE TRAGEDY

CHILDREN TRAPPED DESTRUCTION OF.HOME PARENTS AT CARD PARTY t RESCUE EFFORTS VAIN [from our own correspondent]" SYDNEY, July 30 Three children trapped by a fire which destroyed their parents' home at Werombi. a small isolated settlement about 60 miles from Sydney, were burned to death. Their parents and neighbours in whoso house the parents had been playing cards, were- attracted by the glare of the flames, and made desperate attempts to liberate the children, but the flames drove them back. They could only stand away, helpless, and watch the flames. A cattle dog which had tried to rescue tlie children was also burned to death. The victims were: —Shirley Patricia Croke, aged 9, Winifred Adelaide Croke, 7, and David Henry Croke, 5. The children were members of the family of seven of Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Croke, who lived in a wooden home built partly of slabs and weatherboards, with a galvanised iron roof over the front rooms and a bark roof over the rear.

Mr. and Mrs. Croke had accepted an invitation to visit the home of Mr. Phillip J. Jessup, their nearest neighbour. nearly a quarter of a mile away, to play cards. The three youngest children, Shirley, Winifred and David, had been tj a birthday party at the Jessup home during the afternoon and they were so tired that they said they would go to bed. When Mr. and Mrs. Croke and two other daughters, Gladys, aged 21, and Edna, 18, and another son, Noel, 14, left for the Jessup home, Shirley was preparing for bed in a back room and Winifred and David had gone to sleep in a front bedroom. Two Small Fires Left Burning "Before I left the place, 20 minutes after the rest of the family," said Lennis Croke, aged 22, the eldest son, "I thought everything was safe. We turned out all the kerosene lamps, but small fires were burning in the kitchen stove, where a saucepan of milk had been heated, and in the open fireplace in the main sitting room." Lennis Croke and two friends joined the gathering at the Jessup home, and the first intimation of the fire was when Mr. Jessup went out into his yard about 10 p.m. He then saw a glow in the direction of the home of the Crokes, and when he returned inside he asked Mr. Croke if he were burning-off on his property, as it seemed as though the bush near the house was blazing.

The homo of the Crokes was hidden by a hill and a bend in the road, and when Mr. Croke rushed back to the place, accompanied by his friends, he saw his home enveloped in flames. Helplessness of Rescuers

One of the men broke in the front door, but flames belched out, singeing his arms and face. Mr. Croke got an axe and other tools, and hacked off portion of the slabs covering the outer walls. In this way they hoped to reach the three children inside, but when a hole was made in the wall outside the front bedroom, flames also burst out on them.

By this time the flames were soaring 40ft. in the air, and the heat wss intense. With no water to fight the flames, the rescuers were helpless Realising that the three children had been trapped, two of the party became temporarily demented when the red-hot sheets of roof iron crashed down among the blazing ruins. When, next morning, the police were able to rake over the still smouldering ashes, they found sufficient evidence to enable a doctor to state definitely that the three children had been burned to death in the front bedroom. Dog Shares Fate ol Children

It is believed that when the flames awakened Shirley Croke, she rushed through the house to the front room where her younger sister and brother were sleeping. The three were evidently imprisoned there until they were enveloped in ilames. The remains of one of the cattle dogs, Lass, were found by police in a corner in the bathroom at the rear of the house, and a relative of the dead children believes that it heard the screams of Shirley Croke and rushed into the house where she was. "Lass' always went to the aid of the children when they called out," said the relative, "'and apparently it was trapped bv the flames.' - The police said the fire could have originated by hot ashes falling from the fire in the sitting room, as there ■was no hearth near the fire-place, or from a spark blown from the chimney on to the bark roof over the rear rooms.