ANOTHER FATAL FIRE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10597, 18 February 1896, Page 2

ANOTHER FATAL FIRE.

Auckland, January 31,

A fatal fire occurred at Rotorua, where Maunders's boarding-house was burned dowu thin morning.' One man was burned to death and four others badly injured. Harry Miles, one of the irjjured, was on his w»y to the Waik&to Hospital. Further particulars show that Mr Maundors, the boarding-house keeper, was severely burned about the head. Mr Fartell, a. wheelwright, was burned to death. Ho was in tha employment of Mr Ally, coachbaildery and cirae from Tepnke, 'J.'aorauga. Me Boss was seriously burned. He ia from' Tauranga, aud has friends in Dcmedin. Mrs : Mituiiders injured her leg in jumping out of the window, and is now confined to bed. Harry Miles's injuries are not considered Serious. Me Maunders now gives » rnoro intelligible accoant. He says that he left a candle lighted on a piece of board on the top of an oil drum while he went out bsueath the stairs. Close to th» candle was a quantify of ecrim, alsn pots of varnish and paint. Or rcturuiug ho picked tip the oftndln, not observing any signs of smouldering Dre. OwiDg to his wife calling attention to a Btracgo crackliDg noise (Mr Maunders himself being very deaf), ha looked about aDd saw a light through the interstices of the well. He wont out on the landing to rouse the inmates, but found it impossible to do so. : Two foreign hawkers escaped with slight injuries, but lost their stock of jewellery, &c, which they valued at £150. Both Farrell and Ross were sober men. A long laddor bad been outsido tho front of the houso since it was finished a few weeks ngo, but unfortunately had been loaned to someone on the previous day or by its means Farrell might have been saved and Ross rescoed uninjured. The greatest sympathy is folb for the sufferers, and this is taking a practical shape

After that ho only remembered jumping from » window when he w»s picked up by Holmes. He Baid, " Run to the house in the scrub; there is a boy being burned." Hi» impulse all through seems to hava been to save others, for in his occasional moments of delirium when lying at the Rotbrua Hotel he talked of nothing else. ..'■ • .-.. .■■- .■ . ■■, -. -■ ■• !■"