GRAVE WARNING

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 12009, 11 December 1924, Page 5

GRAVE WARNING

AUCKLAND’S DANGER'. ! POOR WATER SUPPLY IN SUBURBS. / Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Decemjjer 10. Grave washing regarding the risk of fire spreading in the suburban areas of Auckland was given to-day by Superintendent Wilson, chief of the city fire brigade. This is not the first occasion on which the superintendent has spoken on the subject, but opportunity to again protest against the inadequate watermains in tho residential areas has arisen as the result of a narrow escape that the .Ponsonby district had in the early hours of this morning, when the fire brigade' were nearly beaten by a firs that destroyed a twenty-roomed boardinghouse and two adjacent Somes. “SERIOUS POSITION.” “When we got to the fire,” said Superintendent Wilson, “the building was a seething mass of flames, and the houses on both oides were alight. The position was very serious, and we had a I very anxious time. By oheer good for- ! tune there was a vacant section directly opposite the burning boardinghouse, and had there been a house there we would have had no chance in the world of stopping the five with the water available, and goodness knows wbefe it would have ended, a four-inch main is totally inadequate to deal with a conflagration, and we can congratulate ourselves when we succeed in getting fires quickly under .control, because in the areas where there are wooden houses and only four-inch mains, we might easily have a conflagration that would wipe out hundreds of houses. There is eimply not a sufficient volume of water fn the streets in the residential areas to enable the fire brigade to deal with » large fire.”