FIRE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2222, 2 July 1891, Page 4

FIRE.

The fire-fiend has been sadly at w'ork at Belfield. A little after 4 o’clock on Monday afternoon fire was discovered to have broken out in a 4-roomed cottage, with small dairy attachment, at Belfield, owned and occupied by Mr James Tetheridge and family. Mr Tetheridge had gone to Geraldine to Messrs Mundell & Co.’s sale, and on going home found his house under full control of the flames, and almost burnt to the ground. No one is known to have been In the house, or near it, at the time the fire broke out, and Mr James Annals was the first to discover it. Calling to his assistance Mr Harfield, they endeavored to knock in the front door and save some of the furniture, but all to no purpose, for the flames had by this time got a firm hold of the building, and at present there is nothing left but the chimney and a heap of debris and one or two outhouses, everything else was destroyed. The neighbors kindly sheltered Mr Tetheridge and his family for the night. The house was insured in the South British office for £6O and the furniture in the same office for £2O, but Mr Tetheridge estimates his loss over and above the, insurance at £7O. It is a most singular thing that it was onlyon Monday (the day of the fire) while in Geraldine, that Mr Tetheridge took the opportunity to renew his fire insurance policy, otherwise he would have fared considerably worse than he did. No clue is known as to the origin of the fire, beyond that two young women, Misses Annie Waller and L. Tetheridge, were washing clothes on the premises a short time before the fire broke out, and the possibility is that a few sparks from under the copper at which they boiled the clothes might have found their way beneath the floor. They state, however, that everything was perfectly safe when they left the house.