Firefighters and civilians assist with rescue efforts.
Rescue workers assist Mr Kenneth Ballantyne the ownwer from a balcony and down a ladder.
FLOOR PLANS AND OTHER INFORMATION
THE GREAT BALLYNTYNES FIRE.
In 1947 more than 300 people were employed in the department store of J. Ballantyne & Co, situated on the corner of Colombo Street and Cashel Street in the centre of Christchurch.
Most of the upper floors were staff work areas, including the dress-making department, and the credit and accounting department.
At 3.31 pm on 18 November, 1947, one of the salesmen employed in the store was told by a woman employee that smoke was coming up the stairs.
The smoke was coming from the cellar of Congreve's Building which was beneath the furnishing department, but there were no flames and no sound of burning. He told the woman to call the fire brigade and tell the owners.
The salesman was beginning to get concerned when some minutes later the fire brigade had still not arrived. He worked with other members of the staff to place fire extinguishers at the bottom of the stairs.
Upstairs the owners, Kenneth and Roger Ballantyne, had been told about the fire, but there was some uncertainty whether the call to the fire brigade had been made. Another call was made to be certain. The call was received at the fire station at 3.46 pm.
About 250 customers and the retail staff on the ground floor were moved outside, but there was no move to clear the upper floors of the staff who had just returned to work after their tea break. By now the flames had broken through to the furnishing department.
At 3.47.30 pm fire engines arrived. At first the firemen thought it was just a cellar fire. They did not realise that people were trapped on the upper floors of the building.
The fire brigade at the time was understaffed, and the two most senior officers were not on duty. The decision was made not to bring a turntable ladder to the scene of the fire as a cellar fire was not usually regarded as serious.
More staff left the building just as the centre of the department store exploded in flames, blowing out two large windows.
This was the first sign from outside the shop that something was happening, but within minutes the building was aflame.
The fire officer in charge soon realised the severity of the fire and sent a fireman to make a brigade call that would bring out all the fire appliances in Christchurch, but the call was delayed by overloaded telephone lines.
In the meantime it took a further 10 minutes for the firefighters to find the source of the fire.
Some heads of departments made the decision themselves to evacuate their staff from the upper floors of the building.
In the credit department the office workers waited to shut up the office equipment, then tried to leave by the fire escape, but could not use it because of the smoke and heat.
The group moved to another area but were driven back by the smoke. Two women decide to try the fire escape again, but could not get to it because the roof of the office began to fall in.
The women climbed out the window and jumped, landing on a first-floor veranda. From there they were rescued by firemen. The women who had stayed in the office died in the fire.
Another woman jumped from a third floor window, hitting the veranda and then landing on the road. She died soon after from her injuries.
The staff in the dress-making section on the second floor escaped after taking the stairs and leaving the building just as the upper parts of the store began to collapse.
The eight women in the millinery department had delayed leaving, not realising the danger. Only the supervisor and one of the department staff made it safely to the fire escape and down. The other seven died after they collapsed from smoke inhalation.
Outside the firemen struggled to fight the flames in vain. They were able to rescue Kenneth Ballantyne when he broke a window and climbed out onto the parapet of the building. Hoses were used to wet him down until ladders could be moved into position.
Just as he reached ground, power lines burned out and sheets of blue flame swept along the face of the store. His was the last rescue.
By now over 200 firefighters using 20 appliances were fighting the blaze, but were unable to make any headway against the fire.
By 6.00 pm firemen, policemen and volunteers were able to begin the search for bodies lying in the charred ruins. The fires finally burnt out completely by 8.00 pm.
The last bodies were not carried out of the building until 21 November. 41 people had died in the blaze.
How many died: 41
Other events and outcomes:
The store itself was made up of seven smaller buildings linked together, and was four storeys high in some places. Some parts of the building had no access to fire escapes. Around the outside of the building was a veranda which made it difficult for the fire fighters to put up their ladders.
At first the firefighters had only shorter ladders which could not reach the windows on the upper floors. This delayed the attempt to rescue the trapped workers.
The rambling nature of the building meant that once started a fire could travel quickly through the store. There were no fire sprinklers, and the materials used to line parts of the building were wooden match lining and pinex, both very flammable.
A civic funeral service was held in the Anglican Cathedral on 23 November, followed by a mass burial. It was the largest funeral in Christchurch's history.
A commission of inquiry into the disaster opened in Christchurch two months later.
No definite cause of the fire could be found, but the report of the commission pointed to two factors that had made the situation much more serious.
The commission found that there had not been enough well-trained officers at the scene of the fire, and that the attempts to rescue the trapped workers had suffered from a lack of co-ordination and leadership. The fire brigade officers had not recognised the potential danger of the fire soon enough to act effectively.
The building was unsafe, and did not meet city building regulations, although it had been inspected and passed four years earlier.
The store management seemed to have not taken the risk of the fire seriously enough. There was no emergency plan in place and the staff had not been instructed on what to do in the event of a fire. There were no emergency alarms to alert staff, and no way of automatically contacting the fire brigade.
The commission recommended changes in fire prevention and firefighting throughout New Zealand. It also recommended urgent changes to the building regulations and fire safety requirements to prevent another similar disaster.
The Ballantyne's fire was the worst fire in New Zealand history.
Sources:
Boon, Kevin. Ballantyne's fire, Petone, 1990.
McLean, Gavin. Fires and firefighting. Wellington, 1992
Morris, Bruce. Darkest days, Auckland, 1987.
Walker, G.G. The Ballantyne fire disaster, Christchurch, 1983
See also:
Ballantynes Fire
Our local history fact file about this event includes newspaper articles and images from the time as well as sections of the official reports.
Additional Facts
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THE GREATEST DISASTER IN CHRISTCHURCH HISTORY.
At approximately 3.35pm on the 18th November 1947 a fire broke out in the basement of Ballantynes Department Store in Christchurch. 41 employees died and the store was totally destroyed..
Firefighters furiously pour water on the stricken building.
The aftermath of the Ballantynes fire.
Search among ruins delayed by danger from damaged walls.
The Star-Sun, Nov 20, 1947. p.3.
With unsearched parts of the gutted building deemed unsafe for workers, recovery of the remains of victims of Ballantyne's fire was postponed this morning while the debris was cleared.
It is believed that there may be more bodies in the building, particularly in the rear portions, and round the entrance on the corner of Colombo and Cashel Streets, where it is still too dangerous to work.
Pumps clearing the basements of water were nearing the end of their task this morning.
There may be bodies in the tangle of girders, beams, twisted piping, and workroom machinery littering the basements.
Great baulks of charred timber a foot or more square, and between thirty and forty feet long, and steel girders weighing several tons, were wrenched out of the wreckage this morning, to clear the way for completion of the search.
With a big Army crane used as a winch from Colombo Street, the wreckage was pulled out into the roadway from the main entrance block, on the corner of Cashel and Colombo Streets.
Chunks of masonry, roofing iron, twisted piping, and assorted debris crashed down as the heavy beams came clear. Second floor joists, rafters, and other materials from the upper part of the block had fallen on to the heavier beams supporting the first floor.
Searchers were ready to comb this section of the building yesterday afternoon, but it was deemed unsafe until the precariously balanced top-hamper had been removed. Some of the big baulks of timber had fallen at an angle and it was feared that if they were removed parts of the walls would fall, but this did not happen this morning.
Draining basements
Before the pumping out started, the basements had between six and eight feet of water in them. By mid-day, the level was down to a few inches, and the pumps were having trouble with cinder and paper-choked intakes.
Operations were again under the direction of the City Engineer (Mr E Somers), who had at his disposal more than 100 men, drawn from the City Council, the Public Works Department, and the Army.
Heavily pedimented, and bulging ominously, the remaining and higher three-storey section of the Colombo Street frontage has been worrying salvage workers since the afternoon of the fire, for it appeared to be ready to fall at any time.
Held by Cables
Yesterday afternoon, this was pinned back to remaining steel floor joists with wire ropes, and today was declared to be safe. The Oamaru stone and brick structure may be felled at the weekend. The Cashel Street frontage, though bulging a foot out of plumb at its centre, is deemed to be reasonably safe.
Although the overhead power cables were in place yesterday afternoon, trams were not able to run past the building this morning because of the salvage operations.
Late yesterday afternoon, the strong room door, perched high up on a wall visible from Colombo Street, was prized open by hydraulic jacks and heavy timbers. As soon as air was admitted, the oven hot interior burst into flames. Firemen quickly subdued the blaze.
It was thought that someone might have taken refuge in the strong-room, but this was not the case.
A civic funeral service was held in the Christchurch Anglican Cathedral on November 23, followed by a mass burial service at the Ruru Lawn Cemetery. Thousands of citizens attended the service in the Square, paid their last respects along the route, or visited the cemetery itself. Army station wagons were used to transport the caskets while thirteen Army trucks carried the many wreaths and tokens of respect.
In 1948, the Government appointed a Royal Commission to investigate all aspects of the fire. The Commission comprised Sir Harold Johnston K.C. (retired Supreme Court Judge) Chairman, Mr A. W. Croskery (President of the Federation of Labour), Mr A. J. Dickson (Auckland City Engineer) and Mr C. A. Woollen (Superintendent, Wellington Fire Brigade). It sat for 65 days hearing 186 witnesses whose evidence occupied 3527 pages.
When the Commission brought down its recommendations in August, certain points related to the upgrading of Brigade equipment which the Fire Board acted upon immediately. Other areas concerned change to the Fire Service generally, some of which was not finally implemented until the nationalisation of the Service in 1976.
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