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Kōrero: Fires and fire services

Ballantynes fire

  • Ballantyne’s department store consisted of seven linked buildings, with frontages on Colombo and Cashel streets. The seat of the fire was in the buildings of Congreve’s, Goodman’s and Pratt’s on Colombo Street.
  • The fire began in the basement of Congreve’s building. The cause was never identified, but it could have been an electrical fault.
  • Smoke travelled upwards and into the adjacent Goodman’s building. Fire doors had been left open, and the stairwells and other vertical and horizontal gaps between Congreve’s and Goodman’s buildings acted like vents, allowing smoke to spread rapidly.
  • Smoke soon filled both Congreve’s and Goodman’s buildings and began to spread into Pratt’s and adjacent buildings. Loss of visibility made escape more difficult, and some people were overcome by fumes.
  • Fire spread from Congreve's building to Goodman's building, and took hold in the first floor and the roof of Pratt’s building. It then swept through the whole store, fuelled by wooden floors, pinex linings and flammable goods. Workers remaining on the second floor were trapped. All fire escapes were blocked, and a ridged verandah on the street frontages prevented the fire brigade from putting up ladders to rescue people.

Ballantynes department store in Christchurch was destroyed by fire on 18 November 1947. Forty-one people died in the blaze. Click to see how the fire spread through the store, trapping workers on the upper floors.

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

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Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Nancy Swarbrick, Fires and fire services – Fires in the 1940s, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/diagram-interactive/21873/ballantynes-fire (accessed 4 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Nancy Swarbrick, i tāngia i te 10 March 2010.

Comments

Lynn Nguyen
16 May 2014
This is a very sad moment for all of New Zealand and we have learnt so much from it