FIRE AT AUCKLAND.

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 921, 20 June 1903, Page 3

FIRE AT AUCKLAND.

.THREE LIVES LOST IN BOARD INO-IJOUSE BLAZE.

Per Press Association

AUCKLAND, last night. At three this morning a lire occurred in a boarding-house in Wyndham street, formerly known as the .Shakespeare ilotei, and kept by an Austrian named Lukich. The lire apparently started at the rear of the top story. There were in the building the proprietor and his wife, child, and sis-ter-in-law, and four boarders, two being men and two women, also an Austrian, name unknown, and an old man named Mark Markaviteh, employed by the proprietor. The inmates were aroused, and amid great excitement and confusion endeavored to escape from the upper windows by the lire escapes. The darkness and dense smoke rendered tlip situation terrible. Mrs Lukich, with a baby in her arms was observed standing in terror, at one of the windows. Mr J. I l ’. Lowery, a Herald employee, leaped on the lire-eseape, and mounting rapidly, secured the child from the terror-stricken mother and brought it safely to the ground. The mother and the others were assisted down the fire-escape without sustaining any injury. On the arrival of the lire brigade, the datiger of the lire spreading to an adjoining block, owned by the Auckland Gas Company, was soon over.

A seacch of the ruins was made, and two bodies were found on the top story, one that of an old man .Markaviteh, and the other of the boarder, whose name is unknown. Another dead body has been found in the debris of tiie lire. If is that of an Englishman, name unknown, who arrived last night. His age .was about thirty.

The body previously mentioned as unidentified was that of a man named keepa, who was waiting lor a Native Land Court sittiug.

Tl;v: remains of these two were found in tho same bedroom.

Markaviteh\s body was found on the stairs, being burned to cinders ; he was evidently suffocated in attempting to escape. 'i’iie name of the Austrian burned to death in the lire is Mark Omartanich. 'Pile building was owned hy Thomas Foley, and insured in the Imperial for £ISOO. The furniture was insured in the London, Liverpool and Globe for £l5O.

The building destroyed was oi brick with lathes of plaster and with a brick dividing wall. It consisted of three stories and an attic.

A number of police joined in tho work of rescue. Soon after the alarm a rescue party took some women from the windows of the second floor, and handed them down the (ire-escape, whence they ".fere taken to a neighboring house.

.Enquiry was made if there were more boarders on the premises, and they stated that Omartinich was in the top part of the building. The tire was then raging so liereely in the upper story that it was impossible to attempt to reach his bedroom. .subsequently it was stated that two boarders who occupied a room on the second floor next to that, from which the men were rescued were missing. It was then impossible to reach them, the fire having spread very rapidly. Mad the fact been known when the women were removed the Maori and Englishman could easily have been rescued. The rescuers state that the Maori Keepa was found lying on his back, eomnietcly covered with blankets, and-'with no burns on his body. Ilis death was evidently caused by suffocation. In (be same room the Englishman was lying on a stretcher, face downwmis, with nothing on but a shirt. . body was burned only on the neck. He also, apparently, died of .suffocation. If. is presumed that the room filled with smoke while they, slept, and asphyxiated them. The Englishman was sft Sin m height ;he was of fair complexion, and was dressed in a light suit . He carried a swag. The lire apparently started in a small bed-room adjoining the staircase landing on the first door. The cause of the outbreak is a mystery

Tho third body has been identified as that of Walter T. Speakinan, a gumdiggcr who arrived from Whangarci yesterday.