Disastrous Fires at Wanganui

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 64, 30 November 1886, Page 3

Disastrous Fires at Wanganui

♦ At eight o'clock last night a fire broke out in. Mr P. L. Sim's house at Taylorville. The Fire Brigade was quickly on the scene, and worked hard. Of the building nothing was left standing but the chimney stack, and the l<are> walls. The insurances are — £150 on the building, in the Boyal, and £100 on the furaiture, in tliu saiue office. At about 10 minutes to 11 o'clock cries of "fire" were heard in the lower part of the Avenue. Volumes of smoke arising made the locality of. the fire quickly apparent, and the people first on the spot rushed to the right-of-way between Victoria House and Mr Caiman's store. The Brigade was rapidly on the spot, the captain and a aumber of men not having retoned tome after the previous fire. For a time it seemed, as if the Bank of New Zealand pn one side, and Ward's and Messiter's premises on - the other were bound to go, and had there been a strong wind blowing^ at the time it is very certain that nothing could have saved them. Both premises were completely wrecked, while the stocks were ruined by those combined agents of destruction, fire and water. A considerable portion of Mr Bell's drapery goods were got out, and by a. host of willing hands were conveyed to the premises of F. R. Jackson and Co. for safety. MrP. Bell, we regret to learn, loses heavily, his total insurances on stock and building only amounting to £3,000, while his stock was estimated at over £8,000 in value, including as it did his shipments of summer goods. The separate insurances are — £1,000 in the New Zealand, £1,000 in the Colonial (one-half reinsured), £900 in the South British, and £500 in the Imperial. Of these amounts £1,000 is on the building. Mr Caiman's losses are equally disastrous, his insurances amounting only to £250 on his stock of boots and £400 on his general merchandise.