THE INDRADEVI FIRE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 851, 24 June 1910, Page 5

THE INDRADEVI FIRE.

PUMPING THE WATER OUT-DAMAGETO-CARGO ESTIMATED *3 £15,000. INSULATOR RUINED. (By Telegraph.—Press Association:) Auckland, Juno .23. After a strenuous battle lasting for over twenty hours, the outbreak of fire on the s.s. Indradevi was quelled just before midnight lasl night. As stated yesterday, the conflagration was first noticed on the big Tyser liner • as she lay berthed alongside the Queeu Street wharf at 1 a.m. yesterday morning. All attempts to subdue the flames by means of ordinary hoses were without avail, and it was decided 'to abandon all efforts in this direction and simply to flood the hold with water. A tar« ' f>aulin screen was placed over tho hatch* way, the nozzles of several lengths of hose were inserted, and a great volume of water, equivalent to 300U gallons per minute, was pumped from the fire float and the fire engine into tho hold. It was hoped that this would have th« effect of quenching the fire, but after working for an hour the position was more serious than ever, and pumping operations had to.cease. The vessel, which had a list to star# with, went right over to port under tho added weight of water, and to havo put moro into her _would have meant flooding the other holds. Meantime, the list was so great. that the lire, which was on 1 the starboard side of the ship, blazedi more fiercely than ever, and several oft. tha plates began to buckle, while the l paint on the side of the ship rose iaj gredt blisters. Tho heat and smoke was' so great that it drove the • engineers and stokers out of the engine-room, and the position appeared more serious thanl at any other time during tho day. Ultimately, it was decided to secur* the services of the, Harbour Board tug Teawhine, arid a line was attached ta tho mainmast, and an attempt made to 1 decrease the Ust. Suspended on slingsi from the side of the ship the engineers managed, with hammers and chiscls, to break through a port wash on tho port side of the ship, and this released a mendous volume t>f the water which waa. causing tho list. • With the aid of the tug the ship waF then gradually righted, and pumping resumed. Hour after hour was this kepti up, the officers and. crew having a par-'' ticularly anxious time. ' At one time last night tho water waa 28 fe«t de«ep in tKe forward part of tho) ship. No. 1 hold was filled to tho 'tween, 1 decks combings, and the fire was at last* fytielled. The hold in which the fu^' broke out and raged for so long a period!, wad insulated with charcoal, the fumes' from which were overpowering, and play-j ed havoc with the crew* and firemeal when thsy ventured below. ;

The fire having been subdued it now remained to get the' water out of tho hold in itself no mean task, an added difficulty'"being the fact that a considerable quantity of water had got into Nov 2 hold through the bulkheads separating' tho two having weakened. At seven o'clock this morning thflf Harbour Board's pump was put , into' operation on No. 1 hold, and after 13( strenuous hours' work tho hold was' practically dry, 2000 tons of rater having been pumped out. There is still a considerable quantity', of water in No. 2 hold, and/pumping will ba continued all night. Much of the' cargo which is in a. damaged condition is being landed, but until tho greater bulk of it is unshipped it is impossible to find the seat of the outbreak. . The damage to the ship is consfderablo,. the insulator being damaged beyond ro-i pair. At a very moderate estimate it*' will cost over ,£20,000 to iustal a now insulation, whilst the damage, to tha cargo will run into something like .<£15,000. The insurances over the vessel are not' yet available. GAUSE OF THE OUTBREAK, WAS IT SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION? SIMILAR FIRES. (By Telegraph.—Special Correspondent.) I Auckland, Juiie 23. The "Star" to-night; discussing thacause of the Indradevi fire, and referring to the possibility of the outbreak having been caused by spontaneous combustion in the charcoal insulation, says: From 1890 to date, a period of 20 years, over. 50 fires have occurred on frozen meat steamers, or at the average rate of 2i per annum. There is little doubt that the charcoal insulation is tho chief contributor to this list. Charcoal has' the property, of absorbing nine times itsown volume of oxygen gas in which state-* it is in just the condition to -fire spontaneously. .Looking over the past records' of fires on frozen meat steamers there is' a striking similarity in details. The fira is discovered, hatches are all closed, hoses* turned into holds; men almost suffocated, by carbonic acid and carbon'' mon-oxido gases. The fire is eventually supposed to be out. Then the fire breaks out again more furiously than before. The same operations arc repeated with, in most cases, no success, and eventually the hold has to be completely flooded before tho charcoal insulation is entirely put out. When the charcoal in tho walls' is on fire, and feeding its own combustion with the self-contained oxygen, within its pores, it matters littlo if tho-air-supply is cut off or not. It will continue to burn and this is the reason that fires in the charcoal insulation are so difficult to put out. Tho introduction of fire-extiuguishing gas into tho hold can do little to suppress the burning charcoal, as this enclosed within the walls of the' hold shuts off from . all exterior influence. This is probably tho reason why the gas process failed to put out the firo on the Indradevi yesterday, and the old system of flooding tho hold had to bo resorted to. Records provo thai nearly, if not all, fires on frozen meat steamers occur on tho outward voyage from Europe when the holds are not frozen, but at the ordinary atmospheric temperature. In this condition the charcoal insulation would be at a much higher temperature and more liable to fire spontaneously. Instances of this are the Timaru, lying empty in Auckland harbour in 1802, which caught on fire, and tho s.s. Buteshire, which was completely burned out, while lying empty in Sydney harbour in IS9S. Both these ships were insulated with charcoal."