A BIG BLAZE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIV, Issue 20985, 14 March 1938, Page 6

A BIG BLAZE

SOAP FACTORY DESTROYED FLAMES VISIBLE FOR MILES By Telegraph—Press Association CHRISTCHURCH, March 13. Damage to the extent of thousands of pounds was done at the works of the Zealandia Soap, Candle and Trading Company, Limited, at Belfast on Saturday afternoon by fire which started in the soap department, a ■ brick building about 50 yards square, ! and in a few minutes the block was a [ furnace. The company has an agreej ment with the Christchurch Fire T”:d i and when the alarm was given a pumping engine from the Central Fire I Station was racing to Belfast. Assisted by a north-east wind, the fire burned merrily, but it had a flying start through breaking out in the soap department near five huge vats of soap. When these caught spectators at 100 yards distance were forced back by the heat. The blaze broke out in the two-storey portion of the brick portion. Its origin is unknown, J as it was Saturday morning there were no employees working in that particular department, although another portion of the works was in use. The works manager (Mr J. Rudkin, could not estimate the damage beyond saying that it would total many thousands of pounds. The whole of the soap department had been gutted, he remarked, although the damage was not so great as that caused by the previous fire on the same site in 1933. There was no chance of the firemen doing anything with the burning building and they concentrated their efforts on saving the adjoining tallow and candle departments and the sandsoap department. Water to fight the fire was brought through a quartermile lead of hose from a big reservoir at Borthwicks' Freezing Works, supplemented by a small supply in tanks at the soap works. In the first halfhour after the fire started the sight was a most spectacular one, and a stream of cars and cycles up the main north road carried spectators to the scene. When the fire was at its peak, the whole building was a mass of flames 100 feet high capped by a huge pillar of smoke that was easily visible from Cathedral Square.