HOW FIRES ORIGINATE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 10367, 17 June 1901, Page 3

HOW FIRES ORIGINATE.

TO THE ZDITOB.

Sir, — Tha re-cent loss of life and properly at Auckland should make one look around for a cause; and, having discovered that, a remedy. It is quite evident that fires do not light themselves. The servant with green wood and kerosene locked . up, would like such to happen. At Marten, on Saturday last, at 10 a.m., I saw water being thrown into a deal box, over burning embers. This box waa alongside a wood.en partition at one of the hotels. Had that building caught fire it would have been thought a mysterious affair. With nil our warnings, almost daily, it seemb -that we will 1 not take heed. Night porters are essential, but it seems, in the case of the Auckland mystery, that the night porter was a perfect enigma; I narrowly escaped being in the house two days/ prior to the disaster, so that I feel as one who was there and escaped. A night porter holds a very, responsible position, 'for the lives of others are in his hands, and therefore his. daily life should be such as to ensure of his 'nightly duties. If he spends his days about the town, he cannot walk about and watch the place at night. It seems strange td me, coming aa I do from, a town like Broken .Hill, with a population of about 30,000 people and about 95 hotels, A -maximum register in the shade Of about 100 to il7 degrees, that in your colony, more hotels are destroyed by fire in one year than has been the case at Broken Hill* in 15 years. X cannot solve the problem. Most of our hotels are of wood, just as thoso in this colony, and we have. a. most erratic fire brigade and very little water. Tho idea mooted in your town of police ringing up the night porters is a good one, and one that should meet with the approval of the populace. — I am, etc., J. S. J. PENGELLEY. Criterion Hotel.