SEACLIFF FIRE INQUIRY

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22486, 22 January 1943, Page 4

SEACLIFF FIRE INQUIRY

Proceedings Adjourned (N.Z.P.A.) DUNEDIN, Jan. 21. The Commission of Inquiry into the fire at the Seacliff Mental Hospital resumed its sitting this morning and after hearing further evidence adjourned till February 22. John Henry Tonkin, who planned the original manual fire alarm system 30 years ago, said that experience showed that rats could eat away all the installation on the wires for a distance of two feet, in which case the inflammable rubber and casing of wires could be left by rats alongside the wire. It would only need two wires to be brought together when an arc would result, sufficient to cause a fire. Chief Detective Holmes, in summarising the police investigation, said he was pleased to inform the Commission that at no time did anything arise to suggest that the cause of the fire was malice or neglect on anyone’s part. Many cruel rumours were started in such cases and all such in the present case had been investigated and disproved. The chairman (Mr H. W. Bundle, S.M.), sitting as Coroner, found that all the victims were burned to death. He extended his sympathy to their relations.