THE KAIKOURA FIRE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14848, 27 February 1919, Page 5

THE KAIKOURA FIRE.

A PECULIAR THEORY,

An inquiry into the oircumstanoes . connected with the destruction by fire, of one of the sheds on t E_aikpura .wharf on January 9 has been held by Mr. Bailey, S.M., ahji Coroner, who declined to accept tho explanation, that the outbreak was cfvused by ,a spark .from, a file struck by an ordinary hammer. He had, he said (reports the Christchurch, Star), mado, a number of experiments., including the emission of sparks from a file ground on an. emery, wheel. o.vto cotton wool soaked m petrol. The wool ighited, but not the petrol. Dr. Evans, Professor of Chemistry of Canterbury College, had made other experiments with petrol ether (more volatile than the

iquid alleged to have caused the fire),

yet he, could not get ignition nnder the conditions, deposed to, There was a remote phance that the fire had been caused as stated; or by the, ash from 1 a' cigarette (which the * wharfinger may have been .smoking at. the time, though ho had no recollection of" doing so), but such ..was not shown. . . The verdict was that tho 'main shed at Kaikoura wharf, with the contents thereof, was destroyed ■by a fire which originated when the . harbormaster was m tho shed, and it is attributed by him to the ignition of a tin Of -petrol (which

he was: opening) by a spark struck by i\> hammer off the file he was using for the purpose of making the opening m the tin, but that the Coroner is not satisfied that the ignition of the petrol Mas caused iv the manner alleged by the harbormaster, and there is no other evidence to show how it. occurred,.