The Tolago Bay Fire.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6542, 8 December 1892, Page 3

The Tolago Bay Fire.

Mr Esoch Kirk arrived in town at 3.30 this afternoon, and courteously supplied a reporter with further particulars of the fire which destroyed his hotel at Tolago Bay early yeaterdaj morning. Mr Kirk states that he retired to rest about midnight. The hotel was filled with boarderß ; every room was occupied, and one or two people slept on the sofas, there being about thirty visitors in all. Mr Kirk had given up his room to a lodger, and slept on the sofa in the dining room. At 3 o'clock he was aroused by the footfall of someone moving about, and getting up, went right through the house, but discovered no oue about. At this time the place was apparently safe. MrKirk returned to hiscouch, and before he had got to sleep again observed a smell of something burning. He got up, and searched upstairs and downstairs without finding where the smell, which grew more and more intense, came from. At last, after a good deal of hunting, he felt the floor near the top of the staircase and found it very warm, and then going to the dining room he observed a faint smoke issuing from the ceiling. Mr Kirk then gave the alarm, going from room to room and arousing the lodgers. Some of the bedroom doors had to be forced open, and this took some little time, during •which the flames between the flooring of the top story and ceiling of the bottom rooms, secured a good hold of the woodwork. By the time all the boarders were aroused, and released — some of them escaping by the rope fire escapes from the bedroom windows— the place was filled with smoke and the flooring and walls were afire. Water was quickly brought from the tanks and for some time a hard battle with the flames took place. Everybody lent their services most willingly in the attempt to subdue the fire, but despite all the activity displayed and the large quantity of water which was poured in, the flames got such a hold that it was found a hopeless task to save the building. .Then the doors w«re thrown open, and an endeavor made to get out as much of the Sroperty as possible. A good deal of the quor from the bar was removed, and also a large safe containing cash to considerable value ; two pianos were rescued from the dining room, and there was a miscellaneous collection of other salvage, but all suffered considerably from hasty removal and saturation by water. Mr Kirk is a heavy loser, for the amount of the insurance (£1300) does not nearly come up to the /alue of the property to him. The hotel was sold to Mr Hill, of Lyttelton, for a sum several hundred pounds above the amount of the policieg, the furniture to be taken at a valuation, and taking everything into consideration, Mr Kirk considers that he suffers to the extent of at least £2000.

~How the fire originated is a mystery. Jt is supposed that someone must have

been smoking in the early morning and dropped a match, causing a hole to be burned through the floor, but that suggestion seems to be hardly feasible, as the person in that particular bedroom would surely hare been the first to discover the fire or have been suffocated. Considering the origin of the fire at Mr Townley's the other day, it is just possible that this fire was caused in a similar manner, from a rat's nest between floor and ceiling.