FIRE TRAGEDY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 September 1938, Page 5

FIRE TRAGEDY

WOMAN TRAPPED BY FLAMES i i BODY FOUND CROUCHED BY LOCKED DOOR WELLINGTON HOUSE GUTTED (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Crouched by the door of a room filled with smoke and fumes, the dead body of Miss Eileen Mackie, aged about 30, was found by firemen when they broke into a blazing house at 55 Tinakori Road, Wellington, at 11.45 o’clock last night. Trapped by flames, which enveloped the rear of the house, Miss Mackie had apparently tried in vain to escape by the front. She was found on the floor by a door leading to a path outside the house. The door was locked on the inside, but Miss Mackie was apparently suffocated before she could open it. One hand was fairly severely burnt. The body was fully clothed. Miss Mackie, it is believed, was alone in the three-roomed wooden house when the fire broke out. The alarm was given at 11.23 p.m., and the fire had a strong hold when the brigade arrived. It began in the back of the house, which was almost completely gutted, although the front room did not appear last night to have been greatly damaged. The house is owned by Miss Hume, Wadestown. Miss Mackie is said to have been employed at the Ritz restaurant. Her body was taken to the city morgue. Mr McGowan, .who lives at No. 53 Tinakori Road, stated last night that if the wind had been blowing in a southerly direction the fire would have undoubtedly caught his home which, he said, was less than two feet away from the house that was gutted. “The crackling of flames and a roar like thunder woke me,” said Mrs McGowan. “I rushed to the front of the burning house and knocked on the window, but even though I broke it I could get no response. No one could have lived inside.”