ANOTHER FATAL FIRE IN DUNEDIN.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume I, Issue 16, 1 November 1879, Page 4

ANOTHER FATAL FIRE IN DUNEDIN.

TWO CHIDDREN BURNED TO DEATH. Dunedin, Oct. 30. A fire broke out shortly before ton o’clock in a two-roomed cottage at the rear of a building near the corner of Great King street and Union street. The building was occupied by a dairyman named Michael O’Brien, his wife, and three children. At the time the fire occurred, the husband, wife and infant were outside the bouse, and the two children in bed. It was believed that one of the fowls inside the house knocked over a kerosene lamp, for it was from the breaking of a lamp that the fire originated. The small tenement was filled with flame directly, and though desperate efforts were made to save the children, both perished in the flames. Their bodies were recovered about half an hour after the fire broke out, as the flames were easily subdued. One of the children is a boy aged three, and the other a girl two years old. The scene was a terrible one. The father and mother were in uncontrollable agony, and the mother swooned, and was removed to a neighbor’s house in an insensible state.

A very sad incident connected with the affair is, that when O’Brien rushed to see the bodies of his children he received a heavy blow in the face from a fireman, and an order was made by one of the Brigade to take him in charge. This of course occurred in mistake, but it was an exceedingly painful exhibition of officiousness.