TINDER-BOX HOVEL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 771, 18 September 1929, Page 11

TINDER-BOX HOVEL

FAULTY STOVE IN LONELY FARMHOUSE THE HIMATANGI TRAGEDY ("Special to THE SUN) NEW PLYMOUTH, Today. j The conditions prevailing at the lonely farm at Himatangi, where I the recent fire tragedy occurred, are vividly recalled by Mr. Jack King, formerly a sharemilker for Mr. J. B. Westlake, and now a farmer at Te Popo, Stratford. Mr. King describes the house as being almost unfit for habitation, badly built and draughty. The stove was so old and inefficient that if the top were lifted carelessly, sparks and flames blew all round the kitchen. There was no protection near the stove, which was equipped with a poor, S' anised iron chimney outside and rested on a small sheet of worn iron placed directly on the floor. Mr. King thinks it very likely that the fire originated from this stove, because the woodwork of the whare consisted of tinder-dry matai, and they lived with the possible danger continually in their thoughts. It was because of the primitive living conditions that they finally left the farm after only three months* occupation. Describing the arrangement of the house, Mr. King said the door leading to Mr. Westlake’s room was only about sft. high and scarcely ISin. wide. Mr. Westlake used to experience a certain amount of difficulty in passing through the opening, and in consequence usually entered by a window. All the windows were set low in the house, almost on the ground level. They were rather wide and were never nailed down during Mr. King’s tenancy. The reported assumption that Mr. Westlake, as a remit of nervousness, had secured the windows, seemed to be very strange to Mr. King. In reply to questions, he deprecated the possibilities of the tragedy having been due to casual visitors or tramps, and he said such neighbours as there were in the vicinity were quiet, peaceable and extremely unlikely to cause Mr. Westlake any apprehension. During the three months that Mr. King lived on the farm he never saw a rifle or shotgun in the house, hut was inclined to ridicule the police suggestion that molten lead could have dropped from the roof and become lodged in the skull of one of the victims. From his experience, Mr. King was inclined to attribute the tragedy to the hopelessly out-of-date and defective stove.