FIRE ON STEAMER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23181, 29 October 1938, Page 10

FIRE ON STEAMER

HAUBAKI AT SUVA ' . ' . ■{ ; • COPRA CARGO DAMAGED brigade does good work 1— ——— [FBOM OUB OWN CORRESPONDENT] SUVA, Oct. 25 Shortly before noon yesterday fire broke out in Xo. 2 hold of the motorvessel Hauraki, which was alongside the wharf at Suva loading copra. Fortunatelv men were working in the hold at the time, and it was not battened down, so the outbreak was quickly discovered and soon under control, being extinguished by the Suva Fire Brigade in less than an hour. The vessel was due to sail for Apia and Papeete at eight o'clock last night, so had the fire broken out after she had put to sea the consequences might have been much more serious. Spontaneous combustion is '.hought to be responsible for the outbreak, although the temperature of tha copra had been taken before it was loaded yesterday morning and everything found to be in order. Some 1700 sacks of copra were damaged by water and had to be unloaded for drying out, but remarkably little was touched by the flames, and no structural damage was done to the ship. Unfortunately, a large proportion of the ship's sugar cargo—some 7000 tons in all —was stowed below the copra, and this had suffered severely from the amount of water which had to be poured into the hold. Much of it will have to be unloaded. The local fire brigade did a fine piece of work in getting the flames under control as quickly as they did. As soon as the outbreak was discovered the ship's crew got a hose on to it from the ship's pumping system, afid then the brigade arrived and took- two leads from the wharf to the ship. The pres. sure was excellent aiid it was not necessary to use tho engine for pumping at all. As is usual with copra fires, the acrid smoke proved most uncomfortable for the firemen, and those in the immediate vicinity of the flames had to use smoke helmets.