FIRE TRAGEDY.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 September 1924, Page 5

FIRE TRAGEDY.

NINE DEATHS INVOLVED. EX-NAVY MAN’S HEROISM. By Telegraph— Press Assn —-Copyright. Received Sept. 23, 5.5 p.m. London, Sept. 22. Later details of the fire in a loft at Dundonald, Ayrshire, in which nine lives were lost, reveal the heroism of John Greenan, an ex-navy man, who slept nearest to the ladderway. He could have escaped easily, but shouting “the women,” he went to their aid and draggedi out; a girl named Cree to safety. The rescue party was driven back by flames and smoke, but Greenan insisted on going back through the flames. Later he was found dead near five women victims, including two Cree sisters.

A shocking tragedy occurred on a farm at Dundonald, in Ayrshire. A party of men and women engaged as potato gatherers slept in a partitioned loft over a barn. A fire broke out at one o’clock in the morning. The occupants of the loft made a frenzied search for a small ladderway, the only means of escape, but smoke obscured the outlet, with the reault that five women and four men were incinerated.