FIRE IN DEVON STREET

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 372, 25 April 1910, Page 5

FIRE IN DEVON STREET

SPLENDID WORK BY THE FIRE BRIGADE.

BLAZE IX A BUSINESS BLOCK.

Saturday night was one of those nights upon which a fire in a block of two-storeyed wooden buildings might reasonably have been expeeteu to oroduce a disastrous ■conflagration. There was half-a-gale of wind blowing from the southward—a real "mountain blow"' of the old school. And it is due only to the clover fire-fighting methods of our volunteer tire brigade that yesterday morning saw no big gap in the business 'block in the centre of the town. The scene of the fire was in the block recently purchased by .Messrs. Hallenstein Bros, from the late Mr. J. C. George's estate, and occupied on the ground floor by the firm's Xew Plymouth branch of their clothing and mercery business, Reynolds' cycle depot. and Mr. R. J. Deare, boot and shoe maker und importer; and on the lirst floor by the Xew Plymouth Club. The alarm was given just heron; half-past eleven o'clock, the lire having been observed at the rear of Mr. Dcare's premises, where his workrooms are. The brigade was quickly on the scene. Two leads of hose wrrc put. on. and although' (he lire had a very firm hold, ii was gut under in about twenty minutes. The danger being apparently over, the water was shut olf. Almost immediately afterwards, however, a blaze appeared in the Xew Plymouth Club's large billiard-room upstairs, the fire .having evidently worked up the lining. Before the blaze was extinguished the whole of the billiard-room was scorched, a portion of the back wall and ceiling burned out, and the furniture more or less damaged. Two now billiard-cloths, which had not yet been placed on the tables, were totally destroyed. The whole of the premises were flooded, and the water was several inches deep. It soon found its way into the shops on the ground door, where Mr. Deare's boot stoek was drenched, and the "11.1 V stock saturated throuch and throusrh with fie dirfv water, and more or less affected bv the smoke, which was so nungent as to make entry into any of the premises quite impossible during ihe progress of the tire. Had the lire started a counle of hours later, when the chances of its detection in its earl" stages were more remote. .1 ruinous blaze nm-t have resulted, and the block must have been destroyed, despile the high pressure of water available.