PAINT FACTORY ON FIRE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 109, 21 February 1950, Page 2

PAINT FACTORY ON FIRE

DRUMS EXPLODE LIKE SHELLS " EMPLOYEE AND FIREMEN INJURED (P.A.) AUCKLAND, Fob. 20. Sweeping through stocks of paint and inflammable roofing material, a fierce fire which broke out shortly before 1 p.m. to-day destroyed nearly all the factory of Duroid Products (N.Z.), Ltd., roofing and paint manufacturers, opposite the Onehunga railway station.

Firemen managed to save the office and the rear storeroom of the large corrugated iron building, but the damage to plant and materials was estimated by the management to be more than £IO,OOO.

Although many of the employees were away at lunch, some working in the paint shop and the treatment chamber of the plant had narrow escapes from serious injury as drums of tar and paint exploded. Only one worker, David Williams, was injured when lie was splashed with tar as he escaped from the paint shop, lie was .burned on the face, neck and arms. He was taken to the Green Lane Hospital. Firemen and workmen assisting in fighting the fire were in constant danger as explosives continued. An auxiliary fireman, J. Thompson, was knocked over in one blast and cut by flying debris. Another, A. Foster, had a lucky escape when an 11,000-volt power line fell, burning his leg. The officer in charge, R. Preston, deputysuperintendent of the central fire station, sprained an ankle when he fell through a manhole on the first floor. With other firemen who received cuts and burns, these t three men were treated on the spot py ambulance men.

With a series of explosions like a machine-gun, the fire broke out in the paint shop on tho northern side of the factory and burst through the partitions into the main body of the building. Three men who were in the paint shop climbed over the partition to escape from flaming tins of paint and tar and gave the alarm to their workmates in the treatment section. “Gear and burning timber were thrown into the room like a shell explosion,” said Mr J. Woodall, who was working in the furnace room nearby. “Someone yelled ‘She’s on fire’ and I went to get an extinguisher but the room was a mass of flame and I had to run out into the yard.” Within a matter of seconds, the flaines had shot through the building into the storeroom above the paint shop and sheets of flame 50 feet high burst from the roof as freshly-treated roofing material flared up. A thick cloud of dark smoke drifted from the factory, attracting hundreds of workers and residents. By 3 o’clock the fire was out, but firemen were still in the building playing their hoses on smouldering piles of wood and material. The factory was insured with the South British Insurance Company.