SPREAD OF SMOKE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26782, 27 May 1948, Page 6

SPREAD OF SMOKE

BALLANTYNE'S FIRE DEMONSTRATION ON SCALE MODEL P.A. CHRISTCHURCH, May 26. A demonstration purporting to show how smoke spread through Congreve’s and Goodman’s buildings was made to-day on a scale model of the buildings by Philip John Alley, senior lecturer in civil engineering at Canterbury University College before the Royal Commission on Ballantyne’s fire. Alley said that the demonstration was not intended to show what happened when the flash-back occurred, but only how the smoke spread in the early stages of the fire. Alley introduced smoke through three different holes in the basement, and the commission and counsel saw through the glass top of the model how the smoke spread. In a statement to the commission, Alley said that proper fire doors between the basements of Congreve’s and Goodman’s buildings would probably have averted the tragedy. The number of unprotected openings in the buildings comprised a serious deficiency, he added. William Machin, a retired company manager, who was chairman of the organising committee of the Emergency Precautions Scheme in Christchurch during the war, said that a number ■of tests were carried out. Ballantyne’s had carried out trials satisfactorily, and the general time for evacuation of the buildings was four minutes. Kenneth Ballantyne was section leader in the scheme and in charge of the whole block which included Ballantyne’s buildings. Describing fire brigade operations in England, Machin said the general method of getting people out of high buildings was to put up wheeled escapes. People were either brought down a ladder by firemen or sent down a fabric chute into a sheet. He suggested that there should be some voluntary system on the lines of the E.P.S. “I think there should be cooperation between employers and employees for, say, one hour on Saturday morning every three months,” he said. He also considered that a fire brigade, as well as putting out fires, should educate the public on the best means of dealing with fires. The commission adjourned until tomorrow.