COTTAGE BURNED

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 162, 27 July 1937, Page 6

COTTAGE BURNED

Our Own Correspondent)

Fire Epidemic in Central H.B. fourth in eleven days

(From

WAIPUKURAU, Last Night. The fire epidemic in Central Hawke's Bay clajmed it's fourth home in ejeven days, when a four-roomed cottage, owned and occupied by Mr Norman Severinsen and his family, was totally destroyed at 11 p.m. on Saturday. The cottage was at Ashley Clinton, about 12 miles from Takapau. . There had been a fire in the kitchen range in the early part of the evening, and the family had gone to ,bed about nine o'clock. Two hours late* they were awakened by the noise of the fire, which was blazing fiercely in the back portion of the premises. Mr and Mrs Severinsen and their tbrew children left the liouse in their night apparel, saving only a sewing machine, some bedding, and a small quantity of elothes, Mr C. Thompsen and his two sons, whq live about a mile away, rushed over to help, but the cottage, an ;old building, waa by this time hopelessly afight, and the best that could be done was to save a combined washhouse and whare, which stood about 20 feet from the lxQUse, Both the building and the furniture were covered by small policies with the New Zealand Insurance Co. This fire js Ihe fourth in a series which started on July 14 with the destruction of Mr T. Whelch'a Lake Sta-j tion homestead. On July 16 Mr C. Smith'a house at Takapau was burned, and in the early hours of Friday rnornijxg Mr J. G. Wilsou's home at Hatuma was razed to the ground.