Volume Six - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - Select Aspects - Working the Ely Tidal Harbour . . .

The premises are insured, but we learn that the company are not responsible for the insurance of the goods they store, so that some of the consignees may be heavy losers by the affair. It is impossible to estimate the damage done, but one figure named was £30,000, which will probably cover the actual destruction of property and goods.

The Cardiff fire brigade did not leave the premises of the South Wales Public Wharf Company until between nine and ten o'clock on Tuesday morning. They were playing upon the fire the whole of the previous night, having obtained a supply of water by connecting their hose with the pipe of the Taff Vale Railway Company's tank. This, however, was not accomplished till quite an hour after the arrival of the brigade on the spot, and hence the flames had got a hold upon the premises before the water began to make itself felt. Those who witnessed the outbreak, however, expressed the opinion that all the water In Cardiff would have been of no avail.

One of the men employed in unloading the vessel Blonde, of Barrow, says that the fire broke out amongst the esparto grass in the storeroom beneath the landing stage on which this vessel was discharging her cargo of iron rails. The flames, he says, swept through the grass, just as if the latter had been gunpowder, and immediately there was a great blaze. Some of those on board the Blonde became so alarmed that they manned one of her boats and prepared to make off from the vessel, apparently with the intention of leaving her to her fate. However someone succeeded in cutting her adrift, and there was just enough water—but only just enough—to allow her to float away.

The petroleum oil which is consigned to Mr Councilor Bird, and is of the value of nearly £10.000, is not touched, and never was in danger, it being stored quite 100 yards away from the scene of the fire. The oats in the sheds—amounting to about 7,000 or 8,000 quarters, and being of the value of about £7,000 or £8,000 — are still on fire, and will probably smoulder for some days.

The scene now presented is of the most saddening nature. The place is a complete wreck. Charred timbers, rails twisted into fantastic shapes, broken sheets of corrugated iron, piles of burnt and saturated corn, and the great black and broken frames of the landing stages, are all that is left of the busy hive of industry to which Mr Johnstone devoted so much of his time and in which he took so great a pride.