The fire and the barking dog

Two weeks after Robert Wilson took in a stray terrier from the streets of Wellington, he woke early one morning to the dog barking repeatedly.
It was about 3.30am and Wilson was the porter for the Commercial Hotel on Lambton Quay.
About 60 people were asleep at the hotel at the time.
Wilson rose to find out why his new dog was barking and discovered a fire - already beginning to burn the hotel.
The fire alarm was raised and people evacuated.
But it was already too late.
The fire had begun in a wooden room of a nearby auction house on October 22, 1906.
It surged along the street and tore through the buildings, getting perilously close to buildings on The Terrace and huge volumes of smoke billowed into the sky.
But the real threat was a gale force northerly wind, driving the fire further and further along Lambton Quay.
Several buildings were destroyed already by the time the Fire Brigade managed to get in place but another problem was a lack of water to the site.
Not long before the fire started (and proving that there really are no new problems) the main water pipe had burst leaving virtually no water in the inner city.
Desperate, the fire brigade ran their hoses to the sea to begin pumping water on to the fire.
Hours later with the fire under control the list of buildings destroyed was the Wellington Auctioneering Mart, Trocadero, Dryer's Commercial Hotel, Job Corban's fancy goods, Shields tailor, Whitcombe and Tombs, Bank of New South Wales, the New Zealand Insurance buildings, with several offices upstairs, the Wellington Trust and Loan Office, A. T. Bate, commission agent, The Strand Cafe, and the Union Bank L. ,H. Wilson sharebroker, the Alliance Assurance and the Imperial Insurance Companies.
Even then sparks kept reigniting small fires for some time.
There were many questions about the lack of water problem and city engineer William Hobbard Morton began improvements to the water supply, sewers, tramways and public reserves. Of particular note was the construction of the “Morton Dam” in Wainuiomata in 1911 which supplied Wellington city with water until 1988.
It also led to electrical wiring being put underground since the fire ran along the lines to new buildings.
Morton had been born in Melbourne in 1866 and educated there before going into the Public Works department coming to New Zealand in 1904.
Picture from Te Papa’s collection.
He died on June 23, 1923 and is buried at Karori Cemetery.​​