DISASTROUS FIRE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21180, 29 October 1938, Page 22

DISASTROUS FIRE

BLAZE IN DUNEDIN By Telegraph—Press Association DUNEDIN, October 28. Thompson’s Crystal Products Ltd. works, manufacturers of honey lollies, soft drink essences and boot and floor polishes, situate near the wharves, Lower Rattray Street, were completely destroyed by fire early this morning. The brigade was called at 2.30, and when It reached the scene the flames, fed by 50 gallon drums of turpentine, were soaring 60 feet in the air, and five machines and 35 men concentrated mainly on saving the adjoining buildings and contents of Crystal Products, consisting largely of sugar, several hundred tons being stored on the turpentine floor. Among these inflammable products, the fire, fanned by a south-east wind, spread with appalling rapidity. The adjoining buildings were the premises of the Harbour Board and watersiders’ and the buildings of a skin exporting firm. The heat Ignited the bitumen roof of the skin firm, while the solid concrete walls were cracked from top to bottom, and hundreds of sheepskins damaged by w’ater. The machinery and contents of Crystal Products were totally destroyed, and only the walls of the building remain standing. A rough preliminary estimate of the damage is £6OOO. Even at that late hour some 300 spectators witnessed the conflagration. A later estimate of the damage is £14,000. The insurances total £ll,OOO with the F.A.M.E. and Lloyd’s. The fire originated near the boiler.