DESTRUCTIVE FIRE AT GISBORNE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2287, 8 March 1887, Page 2

DESTRUCTIVE FIRE AT GISBORNE.

£30,000 DAMAGES. [BY TEIiKGUAI'H.—I'HKSfI ASSOCIATION.! Gjxijoknk, Monday. A Filtrc broke nut this morning in the stable of the Albion Club Hotel, and spread to the hotel and shops adjoining. The New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Buildings also caught. The office of Messrs Graham, Pitt and Bennett on the opposite side of the street took fire, but were quickly got out. The total estimated damage, is about £30,000. The insurances are: Phoenix £3000, Norwich Union £2100, Imperial £300, Equitable £1100, Victoria £550, New Zealand £1000, Colonial £1.00, Union £750, North British £1550 and United £150. LATER PARTICULARS. The fire had too strong a hold before the firemen got the water on, for them to cope with it, and when the hotel caiifjht there was no hopo of saving it or Nasmith's buildings, which consisted of five shops. The New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Company's building was for a time thought to be safe, it being of brick and concrete, but the wind blowing directly on to the wodwork of the doors and windows, it caught, and the tire made a clear sweep right through the building, also catching Clark's butcher's shop, in which was situated the office of the Native Land Settlement Company. The whole of the goods were got out of the shops in Nasmith's buildings, Berry and Daniels, and Loan and Mercantile front office, but four thousand sacks of grass seed in the store at the back were totally destroyed. The fire caught a mass of furniture, merchandise, grass seeds and other goods that had been removed from the various places into the road opposite Graham, Pitt and Bennett's offices, and the verandah of their building took fire from the heat across the street, and from the mass of stuff burning in the road, but it was extinguished before much damage was done. Large quantities of water and wet blankets were applied to the Bank of New South Wales and Dickson's Hotel, and pro vented them taking fire. At about 11 o'clock the fire had burnt itself out, and nothing was standing but the walls of the Loan and Mercantile Company's buildings, which will have to be taken down. Those burnt out are: — Coffee, bootmaker; MeLernon, jeweller; Millar, barber ; Nasmith, working jeweller ; Searl, tailor; Wilson, Albion Club Hotel; Ward and Creswell, solicitors; DeLautour, solicitor; Union S. S. Company ; Loan and Mercantile Company; Native Land Settlement Company; Major Wostrupp, commission agent: Perris, native interpreter; Berry and Daniels, commission agents; and Clarke, butcher. On the up-town-side-street the fire was checked at Goods' jeweller's shop, which, with Adams' stationer's shop, was gutted.