FIRES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1798, 4 October 1888, Page 3

FIRES.

Chbistchuech, Oct. 3. Shortly before two o’clock this afternoon dense smoke was observed coming through the roof of Messrs Hobday and Go ’s Waterloo House, corner of Cashel and Colombo streets. The fire bell rang out, but in less than three minutes volumes of flames were bursting through all the windows of the older two-storey building, and in five minutes more the flames had spread, with exceptional rapidity, to the more recently erected portion of the premises, a three-storey brick building fronting Colombo street. About this time the Brigade arrived with their engines, but so voluminous was the body of flame, that playing on that was useless, and attention was directed to saving the A 1 Hotel, at the opposite corner, which was in imminent danger. Owing to the brisk nor’-wester blowing, the hotel

ignited several times, but by great exertions the flames were extinguished and the hotel saved, with little damage beyond a severe scorching. In half an-bour Waterloo House waa completely gutted, as well as the Drug store of Messrs Gould and Co., which separated it from Messrs Ballantjrne and Co.’s recently erected establishment, the substantial outside walls of which proved a check to the further progress of the flames Cashel street way. Had the flames got a complete hold of the AI Hotel, the whole of that valuable block extending from Colombo street to High street, including Messrs Beath and Co’s Emporium, the Bank of Australia, and the D.1.C., would probably have shared the fate of the premises where the fire originated, By three o’clock all danger of the fire extending was over, the attention of the Brigade being directed to the smouldering material in Gould and Co’s store, and playing the hose on the wall of Dunstable House. Dunedin, October 3. About half-past six o’clock last night a fire broke out in a nine-roomed house situated in George street, beyond Union street, and owned and occupied by Mr Cecil Northcote, a commercial traveller, who is at the present time in Oamaru. Mr Northcote’s wife and three children were, however, in the house, and the fire was due to one of the children—a little hoy three years of age—having set fire to a window curtain. When Mrs Northcote first discovered the curtain on fire she put it out, as she thought, and subsequently went into the yard, In a few minutes afterwards the child commenced to cry, and the servant, on going into the room, discovered it to be on fire. She thereupon called out to Mrs Northcote, who rushed into the room just in time to save the child from the flames. The house was soon afterwards almost completely gutted, hardly any of the furniture being saved. Northcote’s house was insured in the Union for £3OO, and his furniture in the Norwich Union for £3OO.