ANOTHER FATAL FIRE AT AUCKLAND.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 957, 21 February 1911, Page 3

ANOTHER FATAL FIRE AT AUCKLAND.

Auckland, Feb. 18. Another fatal hre occurred this morning, when a two-storied wooden building of fourteen rooms, known as “Scotia House,’ situated in Hobson Street, was gutted and an old man named Albert Norris lost his life. At the time of the fire the only occupants were Mrs Short, her daughter, Miss Hettie Short, the old man, Albert Norris, and a Maori, Tupaeo Akuhea. The inmates, except Norris, escaped in their night clothes. By the time the fire brigade arrived, the whole house was a blazing mass, and the firemen, who endeavoured to force a way into the lower story, were repulsed. Nevertheless, they managed to recover Norris’s body before the fire reached his room. Norris was a cripple, and was seventytwo years of age, and it would appear that he awoke and struggled into some of h s s clothes, for when he was found by Superintendent Woolley, he was lying on the floor with his shirt and trousers on. Carried to the street below, efforts were made to restore animation, but Dr. King pronounced that death had taken place from suffocation. Mrs Short subsequently stated the house has been ill-fated ever since a man committed suicide in it about three weeks before Christmas. She also made the astounding statement that the windows in her room were not made to open.