THE INVERCARGILL FIRE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2420, 7 January 1882, Page 3

THE INVERCARGILL FIRE.

We take the following description of the disastrous fire at Inreroargill from Thursday's "Southland Times" : Last night, at a few minutes before 10 p.m., the most extensive fire that has hitherto occurred in Inreroargill broke out in the block of buildings bounded by Spey street on the west side of Dee street. A very strong westerly wind was blowing, and the ringing ef the fire bell was but faintly heard except in the immediate vicinity. Those who were early on the soene bad very little to guide them to the exact locality. On entering a right-of-way from Spey street", and which gars back entrance to the back premises of Campbell's butchery (which occupied the oorner), Mrs Wilson's (late Hannah) licensed. grocery store, and the Hibernian Hotel of Mr Austin M'lnerney, small fiames were just on the point of issuing from beneath the shingles of a lean-to roof at the back of Mrs Hannah's premises. The fire was in the corner of the roof adjoining the hotel, and close up to the gable of the store. Immediately the dimes begau to lick out through the gable, and almost instantaneously the whole interior of the hotel, which was a large building, was org sheet of fiime; in faot, the rnpidity with which the fiames ran through the hotel was almost incredible. The store in which the fire originated lasted muoh longer, and fie flame* being fed by the spirits contained in the cellar, oe well as by the meat and tallow in the butcher's shop, which was speedily wrapt in flames, a fierce heat wss generated, which, despite the two chains* width of Dee street, speedily shivered the plate-gloss windows of the street floor of Messrs Paisley and Oo.'s fine building at the opposite corner. The fierce wind blowing directly across the street made attempts to save the windows futile, the long tongues of flamo and smoke making breathing almost unsupportable. The firo brigade did not arrive very early; the explanation of the delay being the simple one, that many of the men had failed to r.ear the bell above the sound of the gale. Their first efforts were directed to the saving of Messrs Paisley's premises, although that seemed to be almost a hopeless task. The rapid march, of the flames through the hotel building precluded all possibility of saving anything of note, and there has doubtless been great loss of both the hotel property and that of its numerous inmates. Had the fire occurred two hours later, human life must have been sacrificed. An attempt was made to get some furniture out of a room facing the right-of-way between the hotel and Mr D. Roche's general store, but the window had only been driven in when the fiames burst into the room and a retreat had to be made. It was evident by this time that no water or engine-power would prevent the fire from consuming a very large area of valuable property. In a few seconds the flames caught the corner of Roche's store, next the street, and the large three-storey building, with its valuable stock, was speedily blazing from roof to basement, and belching forth torrents of flame and sparks against the northern end of Messrs Paisley and Co.'e building across the street. The cornice broke into flame two or throe times, but the arrangements by this time for its preservation were equal to keeping the valuable building with its contents, from destruction. Sheets of galvanised iron were placed against the windows of the lower fiat and battened down. These proved effective in staying the progress of sparks through the broken windows. The soene by this time waß one such as few would wish to see again ; the terrors of the devouring element being heightened by the howling of the wind, and the hysterical soreame of the female residents of the hotel, who had been so ruthlessly and suddenly expelled from their home. An empty building, formerly the Bed Lion Hotel, and lately tenanted by B. Oalder and Go., drapers, adjoined Mr Roche's front premises, and this went down liko a house of cards before the fierce heat emanating from Mr Bsche's stock. It had by this time been seen that it would be> necessary to remove the stock from the shops to the north, although hopes were entertained that Mr Eanan's massive brick building, with its dead wall to the fire, would stay its further progress northward. The shops of Messrs McLiskey, bootmaker ; Cooper, jeweller; W. Brown, draper ; Josiah Sogers, tailor; J. Patterson, shoemaker; Baeside, pastry-cook, and Lethaby, umbrella maker, were unceremoniously cleared of all that could be laid hands on of sufficient value to warrant removal. A volunteer squad, among whom Mr Neilson, business manager of the Mastodons, was a very prominent worker, set to to pull down Lethoby's place, whioh adjoined the White Swan Hotel, and was likely to prove a source of danger if Hanan's Temple of Science succumbed to the heat. As a further precaution Baeside's shop was partially pulled down. All eyes watched the rocf of the Temple of Science, up the walls of which by this time the dimes from M'Liskey's shop were shooting high in the air, and hops was strong that its substantial construction would stay the progress of the conflagration. A lurid glare in the third flat front window told that the weak spot in the roof—the large circular sunlight—had caught fire, and in a few minutes the building, with its three hal'.s, and the shops of Cooper and Brown, were one mass of intense fire. From there it spread backwards to a brick building of similar construction, recently built by Mr Hanan, and need in part, we understand, by himself as a dwelling • house. None of the buildings destroyed burned so long or fiercely as this, and it must have contained an immense quantity of inflammable materials. The firemen with the north engine were husbanding their water and watching the progress of events, meanwhile gutting and pulling down a portion of Bogers and Patterson's shops in anticipation of the fire communicating through the north wall of the Temple of Science. A portion of Bogers* shop caught fire several times, but a little water sufficed to quench it, and it was hoped that the fire would be prevented completing the destruction of the wrecked shops, and so hinder them becoming vehicles for spreading it to the White Swan and other buildings further up Dee street. For a comparatively long time no signs of the fire spreading in this direction woro visible, but the f urnaoe like heat developed by the materials of the Temple of Science, after the floors and roof fell in, heated the north wall to such an extent that the weatber-bcard side of Bogers' shop adjoining blazed up suddenly, and a hasty retreat had to be made. Almost instantly the fire again assumed most alarming dimersions, and fears were entertained for tho fine block of briok buildings on the opposite side of the street. Fortunately the large windows stood the heat, and no damage was done. The south wall of the White Swan, a new brick building, was anxiously watched, while Baeside's shop was burning with only the right-of-way between thorn. By good luck there were only two windows in this wall, and these had been pretty well secured by placing sheets of iron over them and several of the front windows. Despite this, the frame of the window smoked j under the iron, and it was momentarily I expected that this fine building also was doomed. The fire on the northern shops, however, began to slack, and it was with feelings of relief that the spectators, active and passive, saw that the fire was getting to bo more controllable ; although the strong gusts of wind, hurrying rivers of blazing ashes along Dee and Spey Btroets were sources of grave apprehensions of the fire spreading eastward, in which case it is impossible to say what the result would have been, but the destruction would probably have been greater than the colony has hitherto seen. During the brief period occupied by these events in the main street the work of destruction was going on rapidly in the rear. Immediately behind Roche's store was the Handball Court of the Hibernian Hotel, with high pJ'siding round it. This was speedily in ruitj, but the brick wall did good eervice by protecting the burning mass between it and the street from the westerly gale. Other buildings at the rear of Colder's and McLiskey's shop were also swept away, while a large weatherboard building, erected lately by Mr Pennofather for a skittle ground, in the rear of the Temple of Science, blczsd furiously, and was the means of communicating tho fire to the back part of Mr Hancn's hall, as already noticed. By half an hour aftar midnight the destroying element had done its woret, and nothing remained to bo done but watch the neighborhood carefully for the blazing embers which were being driven about in all directions. Along the frontage of Messrs Paisley and Oo.'s building, and up among the stifling smoke, a sturdy band of firemen and volunteers determinedly battled with the scathing heat that swept down on these buildings. No one, for some time after the fire attained its height, txpeoted that Paisley and Oo.'s establishment could esoape, neither would it but for the continuous efforts tnado by those on tho roofs. The public worked well in sarins; property, and the Fire Brigade did all that men could with the impei feot water supply at their command.