THE BLUFF FATAL FIRE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 88, 4 August 1914, Page 7

THE BLUFF FATAL FIRE.

[PBB PbEBB ASSOCIATION. } Jnvercargill, August 2. The inquest on the remains of the three victims of the Cluh Hotel fire was held at Bluff on Saturday. The evidence of John (Kerrigan,, the, licensee, showed that all was safe when lie retired at 11.40. The electric light was in perfect order, and there v. a* no sign of tiro. A little later he was awakened by his wifej and made a search, hut could not* find any lire, but a little later he saw signs of smoke in the passageway. All the inmates were accounted for except three. James Torrance, a medical practitioner, deposed to examining throe separate remains of human bodies. One parcel of bones appeared to be the ; remains of a heavier man than the others, presumably of Butcher. He knew Butcher, but had never seen Brook to his knowledge. The bones were certainly those of adults. There was a portion of the trunk, of one of the victims, but the others were only parcels of charred bones. The coroner found—" That the three deceased, John Thomas Brook, Frederick Butcher and Peter Monsen, lost their lives through being suffocated in a lire which took place on July 29, of which fire there was no evidence to show how it originated." He said he was assuming that the remains found in the debris were those of the three persons named.