THE FIRE.

Otago Witness, Issue 801, 6 April 1867, Page 1

THE FIRE.

(From the Daily Times, April 3.) It i 3 so long since Dunedin was invaded by a serious fire, that much of the apprehens:on which, painful experience had caused to grow up had died away. We are credibly informed that, of late, considerable apathy has been evinced in, respect to insuring against fire, and that many policies have been allowed to lapse* It is not necessary to preach a homily upon the folly of allowing immunity from disaster to engender forgetfulness of its possible occaireuce, for that homily was preached on Monday night. No oniy to the actual sufferers, but to any others who had allowed themselves to be unmindful of th<j beneficent uses of Insurance, the flames must have spoken witb, convincing eloquence. But there was another lesson the fire conveyed, and that was how powerless are the means at the command of the people of Dunedin in such an emergency. The bystanders worked with unstinted good will, and saved a great deal of property. The police were enereretic, and successful in maintaining order. The exertions of the members of the Fire Brigade were enormous, and they were aa brave and fearless as they were active. Unquestionably to them is due the arrest of the fire at a tune and at a place when it threatened ptupendous damage. Had the flames crossed Moray Place, there is no fixing the limit of the ruin that would have ensued. The whole of the town might have been subj *cted to destruc tion. There is

g;reat reason therefore to be thankful the disaster was not worse. It waa serious, very aerious; an immense amount of property for so small a community was destroyed ; there is reason to believe that a great de^al «f individual suffering w^a inflicted. -. But ■when^ne comes'io thick what might have "been the consequence— indeed what seemed to be the imminent consequence -r6f the two todies of Hire rushing i,up towards v the Catting, on either side of the road, it is impossible to , feel otherwise inan^" grateful that "the catastrophe "was not greater. Still, on reflection, the thought arises, how. was it».the fire attained to, the dimensions which made its progress so dangerous, its arrest so fortunate ? There can be, in response, but a feeling of sad regret that with all the painful experience with which Dunedin has been afflicted, the necessary means for extinguishing fire are yet so inadequate. A dozen miners on the Goldfields would think very little of conducting vl body of water sufficient to inundate Dunedin, through the roughest country, and over valleys and rivers, a distance of many miles in a very few months. How is it that Dunedin is so difficult to be supplied ; or, rather, bow is it that the work has taken so long ?^ We believe the answer is to be found in the | feeling to which we referred at the commencement of these remarks — a dangerous over-sense of security. Those who, under the immediate dread of fire inspired! by a receat calamity, were most anxious to promote the Water Works, gradually became more indifferent as the recollection Weakened, and at length they ceased to supply that material assistance upon the faith of which the undertaking was begun. The exertions of the Directors have been most praiseworthy, and they have not shrunk from' incurring personal liabilities, but they Jhave been restrained throughout by ■want of assistance. Let us hope this supinejreas will now be at an end, and that the remembrance of the night before last will stimulate the owners of property to contribute sufficient to speedily finish the undertaking.

There is another foe to the spread of fire, which evidently is much wanted in Dunedin. Where there are so many dry wooden buildings, water alone is not sufficient to check it. There are parts of the town which, if the flames once seized on them, it would be impossible for water to ■ save. In these cases, nothing more effectual can be done than to pull down an adjoining building and to create a gap across which the fire cannot travel. For instance, there is reason to suppose the Criterion might have been saved if an intervening building could in time have been razed to the ground. It seems to us that, in the machinery for such a purpose, the brigade is deficient. We incline to think that tackling should be obtained, against the strength of which, the strongest wooden building should be ineffectual. Given a tackling sufficiently strong and with a sufficient purchase, and the power to use it is always -ready in the thousands of hands available. We have read that in Ballarat and in some American cities enormous wooden buildings have been pulled to the earth in six or eight minutes. It seems that apparatus of the kind should be procured for Dunedin, ■whatever the cost. It may be urged that the power of pulling down is u«eless without the authority to do so. There is no gainsaying this, but the want of some one invested with adequate control, was so apparent the other night, that it is impossible to believe measures will not be taken to giye in future a necessary authority to a properly qualified person.