FIRES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8537, 18 September 1907, Page 5

FIRES.

THE MURWILLUMBAH CONFLAGRATION. FURTHER PARTICULARS. Rgceived September 17, 9.20 a.m. SYDNEY, September 17.; Further particulars in connection with the disastrous fire at Murwillumbah show that with a. view to checking the flames from spreading to Solomon and Co.'s big store, the Commercial Bank premises were demolished. „' The experiment was successful, otherwise it would have been impossible to save a number 'of buildings on the side streets which escaped. Meantime the flames crossed the street and swept a large block on the other side. The post office caught fire seven times, but heroic efforts saved the building. Had it gone, a dozen others must have followed. Patients from the private hospital were removed and tended to in the streets. It is estimated that 250 people have been rendered homeless. Scores took their beds and slept in the open for. the remainder of the night; others were accommodated in the schools and churches. So far as is knovvn, no lives were lost. There were several accidents, none of a serious character. During the progress of the fire there was a considerable amount of looting. On the main side of the town only two hotels, a store and a butchers' shop remain. Many of the places destroyed were insured, but the insurance .was small compared with the losses. Amongst lines mentioned is on? with the New Zealand Insurance Company to the amount of £4,710. It is estimated that the damage by the Murwillumbah fire will range up to £150,000. The greater part of the business centre of the town is a mass'of ruins. The whole of the destruction was wrought within the short space of. four hours. ■ But for the precaution of pulling down buildings in the track of the conflagration, probably the whole of the town would have been swept out. Loads of furniture and goods of all descriptions from the disaster were strewn along the north'side of the main street when the outbreak occurred, and these helped to spread the n>e, sparks soon igniting the goods.

ANOTHER BIG FIRE. Received September 17, 9.47 a.m. SYDNEY, September 17. A fire at Bangalow, which, like that at Murwillumbah, started in a bakery destroyed the Bank of New South Wales premises, and six other business places. (Bangalow is a town of between three and four hundred inhabitants, situated, as is Murwillumbah, in the county of Rous. It is 350 miles north-north-east of Sydnsy).