FIRE AND LOSS OF LIFE AT PAROA.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1184, 12 June 1874, Page 4

FIRE AND LOSS OF LIFE AT PAROA.

The Grey River Argus of the 4th instant gives the following particulars of the fire at Paroa :

Ji'roin all the reports to hand the fire appears to have originated in the billiard-room of the Bridge Hotel, which was entirely destroyed. It then spread to the Paroa Road Board Office ; a private house owned by Mr Williams ; and a new building owned by the same person, which was intended for an hotel. By the exertions of the residents, two buildings—a butcher's shop, the property of Mr Hamilton, and a private house occupied by Mrs Alexander, were torn down and the fire stopped—all that was saved beiug Mr Barnhill's store and Mr Davidson's hotel.

Sergent Moller reports that from enquiries made it appears that Mr James O'Connor, the occupier of the Bridge Hotel, went to bed early, leaving Mrs O'Connor, deceased, and the barmaid (Miss Cendrick), in the sitting-room. There was a miner named Daniel Mackler sleeping in a bed-room upstairs. Mr O'Connor, wife, and three children slept in a room behind the bar, with a door leading into a small bed-room, where Elizabeth Houghton slept, and the barmaid slept upstairs. Mrs O'Connor was the last person in the house going to bed, between 10 aud 11 p.m., and Mr O'Connor asked her if there was any fire in the billiard-room, to which she replied there was very little, and that she raked it all up against the back of the chimney. As near as can be ascertained about 12 o'clock, Mrs O'Connor saw a glare of light on the window in their bed-room lookiug into the bar. She called her husband, who, on looking into the room where the nurse girl was sleeping, saw that the whole house was on fire. He caught up the youngest child and ran into the yard with it, aud in passing through Elizabeth Houghton's room, caught her by the arm aud pulled her out of bed saying " follow me quick, or you will be burned." After leaving his own child in the yard, lie rushed in and found his wife, Miss Cendrick, the nurse-girl, and Mecklar altogether in the dining-room or the girls' bedroom, be is not sure which, and rushed for the other children, telling the grown-up people to follow him or they would all bo burned. None of them had anything but their night-dresses on except Mackler, who did not undress going to bed. The heat of the burning building was so great that the women's linen and hair caught fire, and the smoke so intense that they could not see one another, but fob lowed O'Connor by the sound of his voice, all except the little girl Houghton, who was missed shortly afterwards. She was 12 years of age and serving as nurse girl in the hotel. It was only a few minutes altogether from the time Mrs O'Connor called her husband until the whole place was in full flame, aud the remainder of the inmates had barely time to save their lives. The body of the deceased was found by Mr Michael Dowling about 5 o'clock the next morning, almost completely consumed by flames. It was lying a3 if she had rested on the bed when she died. The origin of the fire is not known.