THE ARARATA BURNING TRAGEDY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3799, 31 May 1928, Page 2

THE ARARATA BURNING TRAGEDY.

INQUEST ON THE VICTIMS. DEFECTIVE STOVE CAUSE OF FIRE. Hawera, Last Night. That deceased met their deaths by being burnt in a lire caused by a defective stove aided by a strong southerly wind and the very inflammable nature of the lining of the house was the verdict of the jury this afternoon at the inquest concerning the seven victims who perished when a farm-house at Ararata, about seven miles from Hawera, was destroyed at midnight last Thursday. Deceased were' Albert Woller, aged 40, his five children, Ruby aged 12, Ellen aged 11, Ray aged 9, Albion aged 7, and Daphne aged 6, and an employee, Charles Bernard Parnell, aged 13.

“The door handle was so hot i could not hold it After twice approaching it I was forced to leave owing to the intense heat from the blazing house,” said the principal witness, Peter Woller, brother of deceased Woller. He stated he was in the habit ol having meals at the house but slept in a tent in a gully about three chains distant.

About seven o’clock he had gone to his tent and a little before midnight was roused by noises similar to cracks of pea rifle shots as if exploded in it lire, lie saw the house in flames but was unable to get to the rear where the fire had evidently started. A southerly gale was raging. After kicking at the front door, which had been barricaded to keep out a draught, and calling out without response from the inmates of the house, he roused a neighbour living about 3UU yards away. The latter jumped through his bedroom window just in time to see Woller’s house collapse.

Witness said the house consisted of d bedrooms and a kitchen, the rooms being lined with fejt made chiefly of tarred paper. The house contained only one fireplace that being the stove in the kitchen. There was no hearth, flooring boards reaching to the edge of tho stove which rested on the soil with the front portion supported by a piece of wooden scantling. Directly before the oven door was a crack in tht flooring down which embers may have fallen. Holes in the bottom of the ashpan made it defective and the timber support had been charred previous to the night of the fire. The places in the ruins where the

remains of the children’s bodies were found indicated that they had not left their rooms. -But Woller senior, who had been sleeping with the youngest child in the front room, was lying before the stove in the kitchen. Six other witnesses gave evidence including Mrs. Woller, who with the two youngest children of the family had gone in the morning for medical treatment to Ilawera where she and the two children had spent the night.