UPPER HUTT.

Wellington Independent, Volume XV, Issue 1396, 10 January 1860, Page 3

UPPER HUTT.

[from oun own couukspondkxt] January Bth, 1860.

Daring tho last fortnight the above neighbourhood has been in a state of ahum in consequence of the bnsh taking .fire in different directions and jit various times.. And on Friday 4a«f t -«-llttle-oUiW;~n!*mp«-l-0!»slowy wliile at piny in the bush, his clothes caught on fire and he ran home en veiled, in flames, his parents tore off his clothes^ ijsjjg,ijiokly as possible, but not before the poor jirti,e,Jel!o\v.\vas severely burned. And on Sunday morning, at 1 o'clock, the Saw Mill »f Mr. Piimmer was discovered to be on fire. The particulars of which, as near as can be ascertained at present are as follows : — It appears about the time above named. Mrs. Harris who is living 1 next door to the mill, and Mrs. Ingram, who lives opposite, about the same time saw flames rising from the roof of the mill, they immediately raised an alarm, and in a few minutes the inhabitants of the neighbourhood wore on the spot, rendering all the assistance in their power in saving pioperty and endeavouring to suppress the fire, but such was the fierceness of the flames and so intense the heat, it was with difficulty am one could approach the burning mass. One of the neighbours broke open the engine hou.se door, and saved many valuable circular and other saws, and by the pulling down of the further end of the building, a steam engine has been sared from destruction, One engine has been very considerably injured, and the mill entirely burnt to the ground, as to the origin of the -firo, no one can form any idea at present, the premises v/ere passed' at twelve o'clock when all appeared safe, and no appearance of fire. This accident is much to be regretted as it must be the means of throwing many men for a certain time out of employ. FUBTHEK PAttTICDLABS, / 9th January, 1860. The fira which claused the destruction of the above mill from /its nature and the position of its outbreak, I am sorry to say, leaves but little doubt it was the act of an incendiary. It appears the fire when first discovered was burning in one of two small apartments, formerly (some months since) used by some of the men em ployed in the mill as sleeping rooms, these rooms for some months have not been used for any purpose, and it is supposed for some time no person had entered them, in fact, they were only accessible by a ladder which had to be brought from another part of the premises, these rooms were lined with calico, and in every way calculated to feed a fire should' such a thing happen in that part of the buiTd'irig.^ These rooms were also situated at tbe middteof the mill directly over the circular saw, and the boards of tho roof at that spot were saturated with wet from the condension of steam from the steam pipe, consequently making it next to impossible the roof could have caught at this spot from a spark falling upon it, added to which the fire in the engine was out by five o'clock on the Saturday afternoon. The mill was passed by two or three different persons from twelre o'clock to twentyfive minutes to one o'clock, up to which time no vestige of fire was to be seen, and at one o'clock ona of the two rooms above described was discovered on fire, and so great a hold had the fire j that in less than two hours from its outbreak the mill was entirely down. When the fire was tirst discovered, not a vestige of fire was tv be seen bat in this one particular room.