HURRIED EVACUATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27504, 26 September 1950, Page 6

HURRIED EVACUATION

Fire In Wooden Hostel

AUCKLAND, Sept. 25.

Seventy-one young men and a staff of five women were hurriedly evacuated from the Railways Department hostel, formerly the Mansions Private Hotel, in Whitaker place, Auckland, about 10.30 tonight when fire broke out in the basement washhouse and store rooms. The fire was brought under control within a few minutes.

When the engines arrived flames were bursting through the walls of the washhouse and smoke was billowing from the windows of bedrooms above. Some of the sleeping occupants had to be roused and hustled from the building. The contents of the storeroom burned fiercely, and the heat from the fire set alight the wainscotting of a corridor on the ground floor above the seat of the fire. Hoses were run down to the basement, which lies below the road, and water directed through windows on to the blazing bedding. Although the outbreak was prevented from spreading through the rambling wooden hostel, smoke penetrated through 50 bedrooms, and it was midnight before any of the borders could return to the comfort of their beds.