Extensive Fires at Palmerston North.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 25, 29 July 1895, Page 2

Extensive Fires at Palmerston North.

EMPIRE HOTEL DESTROYED. About 1.20 this (Monday) morning the Empire Hotel was noticed to be ou fire by Constable Griffiths, who with the assistance of Mr Lyons, aroused the inmates with some difficulty, before the whole building was burned to the ground. Abou* half an hour later a fire broke out in Mr Harty's refreshment rooms, thtt Square, and despite the efforts of the Fire Brigade, spread to Mr Haydon's grocery store, both buildings being gutted and the contents destroyed. The Standard office on one side, aud Te Aro House on the other, were only saved with difficulty. Mr Cavanagh, a railway employee, was the first on the scene of the secoud five. He noticed smoke coming from the rear of Mr Harty's premises. He broke in the back door and the flames immediately burst through the kitchen into the bedroom were Mr Harty was sleeping. Cavanagh pulled the former out with great difficulty. A rumour was current that one of the inmates of the Empire Hotel was missing, but nothing positive is known. The Fire Brigade, under Captain Tingey and Foreman Allanach, worked excellently and it is due to their ener getic efforts that the fire in the Square was not of a moro serious nature — Standard extra.