HEAVY FIRE LOSS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23192, 11 November 1938, Page 11

HEAVY FIRE LOSS

WELLINGTON OUTBREAK CON FECTIO N ERY. FACTO RY MUCH INFLAMMABLE MATERIAL [BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION] "WELLINGTON, Thursday A serious fire broke out early this morning in the two-storeyed confectionery building of Tasties, Limited (Dominion Confectionery Company, Limited), in Drummond Street, Newtown. The upper floor of the- building was gutted, the roof being burned through and the huge beams eaten away by the flames to crash on the floor and machinery below. The damag;e will amount to thousands of pounds,i The alarm wa3 given about 12.30 a.m., when the flames had burned through the roof and were casting their reflection skyward, attracting the attention of hundreds of spectators. The brigade received the alarm in the midst of a hailstorm, through which the engines, with their crews standing in exposed positions, rushed along tho streets.

The alarm was given by Mr. S. T. Verry, whose house is directly opposite the factory. The family had retired and Mr. Verry was awakened by the intermittent ringing of his telephone. This is a connection shared with the factory, and it is presumed that the lire had interfered with the circuit, causing Mr. Verry's telephone to ring in sympathy with the interference by the flames in the factory. The confectionery materials contained in the factory made for a fierce conflagration, and it was not long after the fire was first noticed that flames were bursting through the windows and roof of the building. The owner of the business, Mr. E. J. Solomon, of Wellington, is at present in the South Island. One of his sons stated that the factory had recently been equipped with a quantity of new machinery and that between 2(1 and 30 hands were employed there. He could give no accurate estimate of the damage, but stated that the building contained a great deal of inflammable material, including nine tons ctf sugar, together with a large quantity of confectionery.

LANDMARK REMOVED YALDHUEST HOTEL LITTLE OF CONTENTS SAVED HOUSE ALSO DESTROYED [BY TELEGRAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATION] CHRISTCHURCH. Thursday A well-known landmark on the West Coast Road and a link with the early days of Canterbury, the Yaldhurst Hotel, was destroyed by fire soon after 5 p.m. The fire spread to an old twostorey house a few yards away, which was also burned to the ground. The house, which was not occupied at the time, was the property of Mr. W. T. Burgess, the storekeeper at Yaldhurst, and was not insured. The fire started in the eastern wall of the hotel just before five o'clock. The licensee, Mr. S. Overend, was serving in the bar at the time and noticed smoke through a slide leading into another room.

Water was carried in buckets, and the outbreak was soon checked on the ground floor, but the flames spread rapidly up the inside of the wall to the upper storey. Very soon afterward the whole side of the building was in flames. Only a few pieces of furniture and personal belongings were saved.

UNUSUAL ORIGIN MATTRESSES SET ALIGHT RUBBER FROM LIGHT LEADS Boarders at the Waterview Private Hotel at 26 Nelson Street were alarmed last night when fire broke out in two upstairs bedrooms, neither of which was occupied. * .. At about 10.30 a short circuit on the electric light switchboard occurred and the flames were extinguished by occupants of the house. Shortly afterward one of the boarders noticed a red glow behind one of the windows upstairs. The fire brigade was called and it was found that the rubber insulation around the light leads in two of the bedrooms had been set alight by the short circuit. Burning rubber dropped from the leads on to the mattress of a bed in each room and set them alight. Firemen extinguished the outbreak without difficulty. OTTTBREAK AT REMUERA MINOR DAMAGE TO RESIDENCE A fire which broke out in an attached wash-house at the back of a twostoreyed residence occupied by Mr. Cecil George and his family at 8 Burwood Crescent, llemuera,*- shortly after one o'clock yesterday afternoon, destroyed the wallboards and ceiling and damaged fittings before it was suppressed. Blistered paint and scorched walls in the adjacent kitchen testified to the heat of the flames, which were extinguished by an engine from the Eemuera station. The Parnell brigade also attended, but was not needed. Damage to the living quarters of the house was confined to a hole burned in the wall of the second storey on the landing! of the stairway. Paint on the outsido of the building was blackened by flames from the window of the washhouse. The building, which is owned by Mr. A. Scoborough, of Cambridge, is insured with the Alliance Office for £OSO. The contents are insured" with the Norwich Union and Alliance' Offices) for a total of £4OO.