The Ballntyne fire

The Ballantyne fire

The Ballantyne fire happened in 1947. It was known to be the most terrible fire in New Zealand history. The fire happened at the corner of Colombo street and Cashel street in the center of Christchurch.It was 3:31 pm when an employee found  smoke  rising from downstairs. Immediately the employee  spoke to another colleague inside the Ballantyne department.

There was no sound or sight of any flames except the salesman instructed the employee to alarm the owners and to phone the fire brigade. It was some minutes later that the fire brigade still hadn't turned up and the salesman was getting more worried by the minute , so instead of waiting for the fire brigade he assembled a team of staff members to place fire extinguishers at the bottom of the stairs. The owners of the department store , Kenneth and Roger Ballantyne had been warned about the fire but but they were unsure about the seriousness of the fire.

Another call to the fire brigade was made at 3:40 pm then 250 employees were evacuated from the building immediately. Moments later the fire brigade  finally showed up with no time to spare. Once the fire fighters saw what was happening they were in a rush to put out the fire. At 6:00 pm a few fire fighters and some police officers helped to find any dead bodies in the ruins. At 8:00 pm the fire finally died out.

The fire brigade  apologized to the remaining employees of the Ballantyne department because they thought it was just a ceiling fire but then they realised it was a real emergency when the employees started calling every 5 minutes. 41 people  died in the disastrous fire.