ARARATA TRAGEDY

Hokitika Guardian, 31 May 1928, Page 1

ARARATA TRAGEDY

INQUEST VERDICT.

(By Telegraph—Per Press Association.) HA AY ERA. Alay 30. '• That the deceased met their deaths by being burned in a fire, caused by a defective stove, aided by a strong southerly wind, and tlie very inflammable nature of the lining of too house,” was the verdict of the jury tius afternoon, at the inquest concerning tlie seven victims who perished when a farmhouse »t Adarata, about seven miles from Hawera was destroyed at mid-night last Thursday. '1 he derensed were: Albert Wooler, aged 40; bis live children: Ruby aged 12, Ellen 11. Ray 9. Albion 7, and Daphne 6; and an employee, Charles Bernard Parnell, aged 13. “ The door handle was so hot I could not hold it after twice approaching it, and I was forced to leave owing to the intense heat from the hlaziiig house,’? said the principal witness, Peter Wooler, brother of the deceased. Wooler said ho had a habit of having meals at the house, but be slept in a tent in a gully about three chains distaitt. About seven o’clock lie had gone to his tent, and a little before midnight he l was aroused hy noises similar to the cracks of poarifle shots, as if exploded in a fire. . He saw the house in flames. He was" able to got to tlie rear, where the fire had evidently started. A southerly gale was raging. After kicking at the front door, which had been barricaded lo keep out the draught and lifter calling out, without response from the. inmates of the house, lie roused a neighbour living about 300 yards away. The latter jumped through liis bedroom window just in time to see AVoolef’s house collapse. AYitness said the house consisted of three bedrooms and n kitchen, the rooms being lined with felt, made chiefly of tarred paper. The house contained only one fireplace, ihat being a stove in the kitchen. There was no hearth, the flooring hoards reaching to the edge of the stove, which rest on soil with the front portion supported by a piece of wooden scantling. Directly before the oven door there was a crack in tho flooring, down which embers may have fallen. Holes in the bottom of tho nshpan made it defective, and tho timber support had been charred previous to the night of the fire. Jhe places in the ruins where the remains of the children’s bodies were found indicated they had not left their rooms, hut AA’ooler, senior, who had been sleeping with the youngest child in the front room, was found lying before the stove in tho kitchen.

Six other witnesses gave evidence, including Alls Wooler, who, with the two youngest children of the family had gone in the morning for medical treatment at Hawera, where she and the children with her had spent tlio night.