FIRE CALL

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 160, 29 February 1932, Page 6

FIRE CALL

COINCIDENCE LEADS TO CONFUSION REGARDING ALARM. YOUNG GIRL'S MTSHAP. It was reported to the chairman of the Rotorua- Fire Board immediately after the syren was sounded in connection with the fire in Marguerita Street on W?edi^esday last at 10.5 a.m., that a local business man had received an unexplainable message by telephone at 9.80 a.m. that there was a fire, but had been interrupted before he grasped the purport of the message by a "ring in the ear," and had hooked up the receiver in disgust. When the alarm was given at 10.5, this man assumed that he had mistakenly been given notice instead of the fire brigade. An advertisement inserted in the "Morning Post" elicited the information that a message had been given over the telephone at 9.30, but that this was intended for the father of a young girl who had start- j ed an incipient fire in the home. She was using aluminium paint on a hot stove, and the stove and paint-pot caught fire. The girl threw the flaming pot out of the window, but the flames caught the curtains, which started to blaze. However, the outbreak was quickly suppressed, and the intercepted message was portion of the report of the occurrence by the daughter to her father. It appears that the numbers of the telephones owned by the interceptor and the legitimate recipient are very similar and the girl, in the exc:tement of the moment probably did not give the number very clearly to the telephone exchange. The chairman of the Fire Board Is qUite satisfiect that no previous alarm v>as given in connection with the Marguerita Street fire, and the knowledge that the exchange was not at ij\ault must-be grat;fying to the staff, ^Mlfl 1 l" II II lll I ■■II 1