An electrical fault is believed to have caused the fire to start amongst stored goods and near a fat room which is associated with the Co-operative’s butchery.

The fire was well alight and dense smoke belched from the galvanised iron building when the alarm was raised by women working in the Vienna Café next door.

Within minutes, and just before 7p.m., the fire brigade with all members was on the scene.

The tightly packed honey-comb shelving in the store made it difficult to get completely at the fire which spread almost throughout the 40-foot length of the building, and water was pumped in for almost half an hour before the blaze was extinguished.

The firemen got at the fire from the roof as well as from a doorway and windows in the laneway beside the building.

The co-operative’s butcher, Mr. Vince Tobin, was overcome by smoke and the ambulance was called to take him to hospital. He spent the night there and was discharged yesterday.

With some of the firemen, Mr. Tobin had entered the smoke-filled building in desperate efforts to get at the seat of the fire.

Light rain was falling at the time, but there was sufficient wind blowing from the south to cause a likelihood of the fire spreading had it not been for the work of the firemen.

The manager of the co-operative, Mr. H. B. Hansford, was on the scene along with several other members of the staff. The damage is estimated to be in the vicinity of $10,000, with stock losses and damage to the building.

Not only was this the second fire which the Rural Co-operative has experienced in this same store, but it is also one day over twelve months since a tornado-like storm tore the roof from the Co-op’s Munster Street store.

In this particular section of the town, the co-operative has now had two fires; the old picture theatre, the Empire, owned by Hatsatouris Bros., burned down next door, and a couple of doors beyond that Brownlows store burned down some years ago.

Mr Hansford told the “News” today there would be no interruption to trade as stocks had already been replenished from the co-operative’s Munster Street store.

This issue of the Port Macquarie News is the first in the town’s sesqui-centenary year. It is also the first in the eighty-sixth year of publication for the “News”, giving this paper claim to a proud place in the community as the oldest continuing institution associated with Port Macquarie.

To attain 150 years is an honour still some-what very rare in Australia, and the “News”; for all it represents commends and congratulates those who have taken a hand in the story of progress so far, and may we all, as the present day community, emerge at the end of this year as characters in this continuing play who have enabled one of Australia’s finest towns.