FIRE IN WELLINGTON

Taranaki Daily News, 2 December 1929, Page 7

FIRE IN WELLINGTON

BIG HOUSE DESTROYED. SOME NARROW ESCAPES. A boarding-house of twenty-two rooms, situated in Abel Smith Street, Wellington, was almost gutted by fire on Friday afternoon. Practically nothing was saved. Large clouds of brownish-white smoke about 40 or 50 feet in height over the southern end of Cuba Street at about three o’clock indicated that a good blaze was in progress. In the wash-house at the back of the Arahiwi Private Hotel, 67 Abel Smith Street, a two-storeyed wooden building of 22 rooms, Mrs. J. Allen was ironing, when she heard a loud crackling in the kitchen at the rear of the main building. She went to the door of the outhouse, and before her eyes a board pushed itself outward from the wall, letting out a flood of smoke. She called to two boarders, Messrs Hurley and. Griffiths, to come downstairs, and then she dashed around the house and out of the gate. She hailed Mr. G. H. Blanshard, who was passing on his bicycle, and told him that somebody was inside the burning building. He immediately entered the house and climbed the stairs on hands and knees to get beneath the suffocating smoke. But the flames came through from beneath the stairs, and he had to go back the way that he had come. Sb he left and telephoned the brigade. JUMPED FROM A WINDOW. Unknown to Mrs. Allen, Mr. Griffiths had left the house, and Mrs. Pine, the occupier, was down the street making some purchases. Mr. Hurley, who is an elderly, retired man, was sleeping in his room on the upper floor. Mrs. Allen had run to beneath his window, and he, now fully aware of what had happened, opened the window, his room being filled with smoke. “Jump!” the woman screamed. By this time some plumbers had arrived. “Wait!” they commanded. “We will get a ladder.” “No! Jump! Jump!” called Mrs. Allen, despite the fact that eighteen feet separated the window from the ground. The men returned carrying a plank. Mr. Hurley leapt, breaking his fall by means of the board. He was taken in a cab to the hospital suffering from shock.

Immediately the brigade had received the call two engines left the station and a third followed shortly afterwards. When they arrived smoke was pouring through the windows, denoting that the fire had a strong hold on the house. The hoses were soon at work checking the spread of the fire. Meanwhile a large crowd had assembled. A CLIMB TO THE FLAMES. •A risky thing was done' by a boarder, who climbed up the verandah post, heedless of the calls pf the crowd, and reached tho balcony. At this stage the fire broke some of the panes of glass in the right upper window of the house, letting out thick clouds of smoke. Across the roofing which joined the bay window to the house, neglectful of the pieces of glass which littered it and their warning, he approached to the window and deliberately broke another pane, telling those below that he “wanted to have a look inside.” He pushed his head through the hole, and then pulled it away quickly. The dames leapt out and caused him to slide down to the spouting, shaking his burning fingers with which he had held on to the sill. Then he came down to earth once more. The shouts of those who saw the boarder’s act brought the firemen running round to find out what had happened, but they were not required, as he had already descended. After half an hour’s hard fight the brigade got the upper hand. The inside of the house, when the blaze had died away, was a mass of charred, blackened walls, stairs and rafters, and was practically gutted. Mrs. E. M. Pine, the occupier of the building, said that it contained 22 rooms, all of which were occupied. Of these about 17 were gutted, and the remainder damaged by fire and water, or both.—Dominion.