Ruinous Fire Losses

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 275, 10 February 1928, Page 8

Ruinous Fire Losses

NEW YEAR’S BAD RECORD

Worst in Dominion’s History 7

JJROCESSIONS of fires leave behind nasty inferences. They' are al ways associated with economic depression and financial stringency.

Insurance men view recent developments with alarm. The long sequence of fires is making underwriters work overtime, and clerks cannot keep up with their work. There is always a percentage of suspicious fires, and, on the contrary, a number that can at once be considered accidental. Insurance men and fire investigators know that the suspicious fires are usually small ffres. In large factories and business establishments, where large stocks of combustible material are often held, the risk of accidental outbreaks is high, and de-

struction is often so complete that causes cannot accurately be traced. In the five and a-half weeks covered by this review there were 39 houses burned. Three of them were destroyed in grass or bush fires, and five were unoccupied when the flames took hold. Every day the tally of fires is enlarged, and the statistician finds it difficult to keep pace with the rising total of fires and losses. UNDER A SMOKE PALL For fires of consequence the year opened mildly. No outbreak was chronicled on January 1; on January 2 a grandstand at the Gisborne racecourse was slightly damaged, and January 3 was again the occasion of a “clean sheet.” Then, on January 4, the “fun” started. That day there were five serious fires, including three in Auck-

In less than six weeks the netv year has established a disastrous record. Flame is ravaging the land.

Damage to property since "January 1 involves loss amounting to at least a quarter of a million. There have been 107 tires in which structural property was damaged, and innumerable others that swept forest and pasture.

land and two bad outbreaks iu the business quarter of Nelson. This review excludes minor grass fires. But even so these were six more or less serious fires on January 5, three on the following day, four on January S, five on January 9, and six on January 12. , By this time the Waikato and Hauraki swamp fires were smothering South Auckland under a sultry smoke pall, and the still unbroken dry spell had bleached every hillside in the country, so that grass fires have since been a matter of almost hourly occurrence. But It is not the grass fires that are causing the concern. Grass fires though often due to carelessness, are an inevitable accompaniment of dry, hot weather, and as such must be tolerated. The serious fires in houses shops and warehouses are, however, in a different category. Where they are not baffled by the causes, insurance and fire board officials say a great deal of carelessness is apparent. One fire in an Auckland apart ment house was caused by omission to switch off that dangerous agency, the electric iron, and dozens of others must have been due to similar avoidable elements. TERRIBLE PERIOD “It has been a terrible period for fires,” said a representative of the Auckland underwriters. “It is easy to see that there has been a lot of carelessness. People should be more careful with electric devices. At the same time there are a lot of fires we cannot account for. It is a very bad business. The past five weeks has been the worst, for fires, in the history of New Zealand.” An investigation discloses that since January 1 there have been 107 serious fires in various parts of the country, with damage estimated to reach £264,620. These totals were endorsed by a representative of the Auckland Fire Underwriters’ Association. Apart from grass fires, and other minor outbreaks, there were thirty fires in Auckland, and in some of them the loss was heavy. Towns that suffered most were Reefton, which was almost wiped out, and may never recover from the blow; Nelson, Auckland, Whangarei, Christchurch and Wellington. Wellington had two very bad warehouse fires. Auckland had a serious sawmill fire, and two recent outbreaks In big business blocks. Christchurch capped a bad four weeks with the disastrous Altchlson, Steans fire, with loss amounting to nearly £25,000, and Napier saw a suburban and a city hotel go up in smoke during the period.

Fire losses in New Zealand average about £600,000 per year. In 1925 the loss was £621,410, and in 1924 it was £634,072. Already this year, after only five and a-half weeks, the figure is approaching £300,000. It promises to be a record year.