One of the most furious fires experienced in the International Settlement in months gutted the two-storey Shanghai Wie Dah Bobbin Works, 281 Weihaiwei Road, on Friday. The flames, which a¥ one time shot 00 feet into the air from the root of the building, damaged neighbouring dwelling houses slightly and caused hundreds of persons to flee from their homes and from the factory.
The fire, whose origin was not determined, started at 925 am. and burned well into the afternoon despite the efforts of firemen to extinguish it quickly. Besides engines from the Sinza Fire Station, the Central Station rescue van and an ambulance respond-fed to the alarm and the French Fire Brigade stood by. Capt. J. G. Dyson, Chief Officer of the Setilement Fire Brigade, was personally in charge of the" work. The ruins were still smouldering at 6 p.m, One of the difficulties in combatting the flames was the low pressure in the water mains and a call was sent to the Shanghai Waterworks to remedy this situation. Another. was the fact that all windows were heavily, barred and that when the. firemen, nally broke through them they were forced back temporarily by the tremendous heat inside, One Chinese fireman suffered slight lacerations of the back and was taken to hospital, but no other injuries were reported.
'The damage, which included the loss of valuable machinery, was unofficially estimated at more than, $50,000." Thousands of wooden bobbins were destroyed. Strangely, the boiler room of the factory was' virtually untouched and no explosions occurred.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.