GIGANTIC FIRES.

Opunake Times, Volume VII, Issue 335, 23 November 1897, Page 2

GIGANTIC FIRES.

London, November 20. The greatest tire iu Loudon since the Tooley Street conflagration of August, 1891, when enormous damage was done amougst the wharves and warehouses, occurred to-day. Well Street, Hampswell Street, and Jewin Street were soon a mass of flames, and the premises comprising the three streets were completely destroyed, as also were parts of Nicholl Square, Jewin Crescent, Bradford Avenue, Wood Street, and Redcross Street. Many workmen and girls in factories and warehouses narrowly escaped death. They frantically rushed into tire streets. Others were rescued from the roofs by fire-escapes. Over one hundred warehouses and offices were burned. Melbourne, November 22. Yesterday was the scene of an apalling fire, doing damage to the extent of a million and a half. The fire originated in the early hours in the huge shop and premises of Craig, Williamson and Thomas, Elizabeth Street, between Flinders Lane, but the flames obtained such a hold, and the conditions wore so peculiarly favorable to its spread, that the fire was not got under control until three fourths of the buildidgs on the idock bounded by Elizabeth Street, Flinders Street, Swanston Street, and and Flinders Lane, comprising the great warehouse emporium of Victoria had been gutted and reduced to a mass of tottering ruins.