COSTLY FIRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 October 1938, Page 7

COSTLY FIRE

AUCKLAND BUILDING BADLY DAMAGED SUDDEN AND SPECTACULAR BLAZE (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, October 6. Sweeping with amazing rapidity through the two top floors of a building at 63 Shortland Street, owned and occupied by W. W. Wilton and Company, Limited, a fire which broke out shortly after 5 o’clock caused several thousands of pounds worth of damage to the stock of scientific equipment and chemicals and partly destroyed the upper portion of the building. The manager, Mr A. A. Gray, and his typist, Miss H. G. Menzies, were nearly trapped while looking for an elderly visitor who had disappeared. Dense black smoke enveloped nearby buildings and great tongues of flame, which leaped through the roof and out of the windows, for a time threatened the premises of Shorter’s Rental Cars, Ltd., on the western side and those of the Takapuna Jockey Club on the other side. Immediately the seriousness of the fire was realised, all cars belonging to Shorters were hurriedly driven to safety. An alarm was given by Miss Menzies. She said afterward that all other employees left the building at five o’clock. Mr Gray and the visitor, Mr F. J. Smith, were talking in the office on the first floor overlooking Shortland Street. She went downstairs, and as she reached the bottom she was startled to see a sheet of flame issue from a 12-foot-high bin of wood at the back of the ground floor. Next minute she heard a series of explosions, apparently caused by bursting chemical bottles. Brigades at once attacked the outbreak from Chancery Lane and Shortland Street. Meanwhile thousands of people had blocked Shortland Street down to Queen Street, and emergency squads of police were rushed to the scene to keep the people well clear of the building since, until the arrival of the manager, it was not known whether the building held explosive chemicals. The only section of the second and third floors to escape damage was the office. The roof and top floor were in ruins and the second floor was strewn with broken bottles, charred wood, and damaged fixtures. The back windows look out upon the ruins of the block of buildings once occupied by D.S.C. and .Cousins, Ltd.. which were swept by a disastrous fire on May 15, causing damage estimated at £40,000. According to Mr Gray, insurances on both stock and building were held by the London Assurance Corporation. He thought the policy on the stock was for about £4OOO, and that bn the building about £2OOO.