Sessional_Paper_1949 — Page 36

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APPENDIX 3.

Sample 4669 (a)

Sample 4668

Sample 4661

Sample 4835

REPORT BY MR. R.C. TERRY, ASSISTANT GOVERNMENT CHEMIST, ON

INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE CAUSE OF THE WING ON FIRE.

1. GENERAL.

This report supersedes the interim report on the fire investigations, dated 9th October, 1948. The content of that report has not been altered, but only extended, amplified and re-arranged in line with the final development of the investigation.

This report has deliberately been made rather comprehensive, in order to serve as a record for such future reference as may be necessary. A condensed sum- mary has been added for convenience.

All the investigations detailed herein, other than the laboratory work, have been carried out jointly by Det.-Insp. Shaw and myself.

The report is divided into the following sections:

(a) Observations made on the site.

(b) General picture of the fire, from the technical standpoint.

(c) Contents of Godown No. 5.

(d) Early theories of origin of the fire.

(e) Final theory of origin; properties of nitrate film.

(f) Summary.

The investigation was commenced at the Wing On Godowns on the after- noon of 23rd September, 1948.

2. OBSERVATIONS MADE ON THE SITE.

(a) Structure.

No. 5 Godown, being a reinforced concrete building, had resisted the fire very well, a sagging of the ceiling above stacks 49 and 52 (see attached plan No. 1) being the only obvious distortion. A hole about 10 feet wide by 4 feet high had been blown out of the Des Voeux Road wall on the ground floor corresponding to No. 363.

The iron door in Scavenging Lane was bulged outwards, as if by blast, and that leading to Whitty Street was slightly bulged. The bars of the left hand window giving on Scavenging Lane (Plan, top left) had been forced out and were overhang- ing the lane.

The granite pillars supporting the arcade outside were extensively flaked by the great heat, to a depth of 1-2 inches from the surface.

(b) Area around Stack 52 (on plan No. 1) and the road outside

hole in wall.

Immediately inside the hole blown in the wall was a large quantity of steel drums, mainly lidless but some with lids partially forced off by internal pressure. This stack is that marked 52 in the plan. There was a complete layer of upright drums on the floor, and on top of them, a confused mass of upset drums, lids, and half-burnt bales of raw rubber.

To the right of this was a large stack of phosphate fertilizer in straw sacks; this, being an inert material, had not burnt but some of the sacks had burnt through and their contents collapsed into the space to the right of the drums.

Mixed with this collapsed material were circles of metal which I recognized as the bottoms and lids of fibre kegs, of the type normally used to contain rubber accelerators. On removing the drums of stack 52, later on, I found adhering to the bottom a quantity of melted and solidified material which had the appearance of that commodity.