TRAPPED BY FIRE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21188, 8 November 1938, Page 6

TRAPPED BY FIRE

Eight People Dragged to Safety One Man Dies from Burns Blaze in Auckland Boardinghouse By Tel earn pb—Press Association AUCKLAND, November 1. Trapped in their beds by fire which broke oat at about 10 o’clock to-night, eight people staying at a boarding house at 117 Grey’s Avenue, had to be pulled and pushed out of the blazing house by firemen. One man subsequently died on his way to hospital and another is very seriously burned. A third man suffered severe bums, and three more are being treated for less severe bums and shock. The names of only two of the people in the house were ascertainable at the scene of the fire, since the boarders were itinerant guests, and nobody in the house seemed to know the names of the other people there. Miss Katherine Schischka. aged 83. the proprietress, was not injured. She was awakened by the roar of flames in the bedroom immediately in front of her. and threw herself to safety through a back window. An old man, J. P. Evans, aged 67. who occupied a bedroom across the passageway from the one where the fire broke out. was unable to escape through the flame-filled passage and was found by firemen in his bedroom. He was pushed through a window. Candle Thought to Be Cause The fire started in a front bedroom occupied by a Maori man and his two children. A candle was the only illumination. and it is thought that this caused the fire. The flames rapidly gained a hold of the bedclothes, and other easily inflammable material, and then swept into the passageway, pierced the celling and quickly gained control of the upstairs portion of the building, where occupants of the bedrooms were caught by a wall of flames all about them. It is stated that there were three men in these rooms, and they were the most seriously injured. One of them, who was totally deaf, did not hear the alarm sounded by the other occupants, and was badly burned before being dragged down a narrow staircase by some of the firemen, who also pulled other men on to the roadway. Four engines from nearby stations were sent to attend to the fire, and control was quickly obtained once the people inside had been found and rescued.