TIMBER MILL FIRE

Timaru Herald, Volume CL, Issue 22125, 20 November 1941, Page 4

TIMBER MILL FIRE

Blaze In Christchurch Damage Estimated At £lO,OOO (P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, Nov. 19. Half a city block was razed to the ground early this morning when the timber yards and mill of C. S. McCully, Ltd., at the corner of Tuam and Montreal Streets, caught fire, the damage being estimated at £lO,OOO. The outbreak was first noticed about 1.20 a.m., and the brigade was on the scene within a few minutes, but by then the fire had such a strong hold that there was no hope of doing anything beyond attempting to confine it to the timber yard. The occupants of six houses adjoining the yards moved hurriedly into the street in their night attire, taking a few personal belongings. Fireman Norman Phelan was injured about 2.10 a.m. when the north wall of McCully’s premises fell into the street. He is a married man with two children. He had to be taken from under the collapsed brick wall and was admitted to hospital. From the start, for most of the spectators interest was in the fate not of the timber- yard, which was an unbroken mass of flames, but of the houses—three in Montreal Street and three in St Asaph Street, with their bedding and furniture stacked in the street. The occupants of these houses stood in them night attire watching their homes, just beyond which the fire blazed fiercely.

Right against the high brick wall of McCully’s, in Montreal Street, was one house occupied by Mr Port. Misstag him when she was out in the street and the house was already endangered by the wall, Mrs Port told the police, and three constables went in and found him cut about the face but preparing to leave. Not long after they all left the house it was almost demolished by the falling wall. After -this it caught fire.

By 1.35 a.m. the blaze was so great that it threw a flare of light on the Cathedral spire half a mile away. The nightwatchman for McCully, Ltd. (Mr Halkett) reported that the fire started when a spark from the boiler, blown out by the wind, fell on some skirting and, fanned by a sudden gust of wind, immediately caused the fire. Mr Halkett obtained a bucket of water, but within a few seconds, he said, the flames were everywhere. The woodgn outer walls of McCully’s office fell Into the street about 2 a.m. Twenty minutes later the brick wall in Tuam Street fell out, pinning Fireman Phelan under the debris and slightly injuring another fireman on a knee. Another alarm was raised about 2 o’clock when smoke and flames were seen coming from the back of the premises of W. A. McLaren and Company, Ltd., motor engineers, of 108 St Asaph Street. Their premises, packed with motor-cars and trucks and with petrol pumps and oil drums clase at hand, were immediately opposite the burning buildings. Firemen at once broke the lock on the door and in a short period the blaze was put out leaving only a few smouldering sacks. When daylight came the whole of McCully’s area, of nearly two acres, was a smouldering ruin with only the gaunt frames of giant bandsaws standing. For hours after the main fire was extinguished firemen poured jets of water on the ruins, from which clouds of smoke and steam enveloped the district.