FIRE IN CHRISTCHURCH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 October 1938, Page 8

FIRE IN CHRISTCHURCH

OUTBREAK IN GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS. SEVERAL MEN DISABLED BY FUMES. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Hampered by dense clouds of acrid smoke, in which several men were overcome, the Christchurch Fire Brigade had a difficult task to check an outbreak of fire in the Government Buildings in Worcester Street early this morning. Discovered shortly after 2 a.m., the fire had started apparently in the electrical workshop in the basement, underneath the offices occupied by the Customs Department, but dense clouds of smoke rising by way of the lift well and the main stairc»ise right to the top of the building gave the impression that the whole block was alight. The pungent fumes of burning rubber and other insulating materials in the electrical workship, and of charred deerskins in a nearby store mingled with the smoke of smouldering paper as the fire ate its way into the stacks of documents, an accumulation of years, which fill most of the basement. Several firemen who went down into the basement, seeking the seat of the fire, without gas masks were overcome and collapsed, but -were carried out by comrades equipped with respirators. Shortly after 3 a.m. the fire was out. Little structural damage was done, though the fire burned a hole about ten feet in diameter through the floor of a corridor.