EARLY MORNING FIRE

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVII, Issue 8, 7 December 1926, Page 6

EARLY MORNING FIRE

WOODEN BUILDING DAMAGED. BRIGADE’S GOOD SAVE. At f&ur-tkirty o’clock this morning the Fire Brigade received a call td an outbreak of fire in a two-storeyed wooden building three doors away from the Central Station, the alarm having been given by residents of a boardinghouse next door to the burning structure.

» On arrival, the brigade found that the outbreak had a good hold, and, with the close proximity of the hoardinghouse on the one side and the Oddfellows’ Hall on the other, there was every possibility of a serious conflagration, as all three buildings are of wood and are separated by a few feet in each instance.

Three leads of hose were promptly run out, and ten minutes’ fighting saw the outbreak in hand although. it was not for some time after this that the flames were finally quelled. Upstairs the building was untenanted, but the ground floor was used as a toy manufactory by Mr Budd, who, with his wife, lived at the rear. Last night, however, they were not on the premises. The fire apparently started downstairs and worked its way up. On the ground floor the only damage done by the fire was to the ceiling, the stairway and a partition, the plant and furniture being damaged by water only. Upstairs more damage was done by fire than down below, the walls practically all having caught alight. Through one window facing the boardinghouse the flames had actually licked the wall of the latter structure, causing it to catch alight. However, this, witn a broken window, was the only damage done to the boardinghouse. The brigade’s work was particularly good, and, had not the alarm been given so promptly, there would have been, in all probability, a serious conflagration, involving, perhaps, the three building. Tho structure to which the outbreak was confined is owned by Mt F. S. Seon, of Wellington, but no details of insurances are available.