HEAVY DAMAGE

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23317, 28 September 1945, Page 4

HEAVY DAMAGE

Linseed Oil Factory Destroyed Spectacular Blaze (N.Z.P.A.) DUNEDIN. Sept. 27. A spectacular fire on the foreshore at 3.45 a.m. destroyed the linseed products division of Dominion Industries, Limited. Explosions of raw linseed oil in drums created a danger for firemen, and the whole outfit was destroyed, the damage being estimated at between £50.000 and £60.000. No. 4 storage tank of the Shell Company was reached by the flames and the spirit ignited, but this was extinguished by foam. Flames shot fully 300 ft into the air and there was intense heat from bursting drums of linseed oil. More than 20 brigadesmen were engaged in fighting the blaze and they were handicapped from the start owing to the impossibility of approaching the seat of the fire, because of the heat which seared a pest and wire fence 150 ft away from the building on the opposite side of the main railway line, charred the sleepers of the railway line itself and twisted into grotesque shape a line running along a siding to a wool store some distance away. After an hour the building had burnt itself out, only a tangled mass of machinery and a few concrete walls remaining. The oil blazed fiercely and it was still alight at noon to-day. The Superintendent of the Brigade said this afternoon that the cause of the fire was unknown.

Some plant recently imported from England for erection in the company’s new buildin"'- was stored in the mill destroyed by fire, said the manager, Mr A. G. Hemming, this afternoon. Because of the amount of debris it, was impossible to estimate reliably the damage caused, but he thought it possible that the delivery of replacement machinery would be expedited, thus allowing the company to carry out its original development programme with only slight delay.