|
Chapter 8 |
|
CHAPTER VIII SOME OTHER CONFLAGRATIONS At Portland, Maine, July 4, 1866, a fire cracker thrown in a builder’s shop in Commercial street, started a fire which burned two hundred acres, eighteen hundred buildings, rendered six thousand homeless and caused a property loss of $15,000,000.00 A cow tipped over a lamp at the corner of DeKoven and Twelfth streets, Chicago, Oct. 8, 1871, and twenty-one hundred and twenty-four acres were laid waste, seventeen thousand four hundred and fifty buildings destroyed, two hundred people lost their lives, and the value of the property destroyed was $200,000,000.00. At a banquet of business men soon after the Chicago fire, Chief Damrell of Boston, was asked if such a thing were possible in Boston. He replied that with a delayed alarm 45 |
|
46 THE SALEM FIRE and bad conditions Boston could surely have a conflagration. How true his prediction was we shall see. Nov. 9, 1872, at 7 P. M. a spark snapped from a furnace at the corner of Kingston and Summer streets. A delay in sending the alarm gave the fire a start and the Boston Fire Department, the horses all sick with a distemper, faced a fire which burned sixty-five acres, seven hundred and seventy-six buildings, cost thirteen lives and $70,000,000.00. Engine 1 and 2 and Hose 5 of Salem, arrived here at midnight. At 10.48 A. M. on February 7, 1904, the automatic alarm registered for a fire in the basement of the Hurst building, Baltimore. A chemical stream was taken into the basement promptly, but the crew were soon driven out, and in seven minutes an explosion took place’~ in the upper part of the building. This was probably a hot air explosion in the air shaft, but it is claimed there were one hundred dozen celluloid shirt bosoms in the upper story, which exploded. The fire spread through the entire building and in fifteen minutes the surrounding buildings were on fire, and in thirty minutes the fire was beyond control. One hun- |
|
|
dred and forty acres were burned, twenty-five hundred buildings destroyed and the loss was over $6o,ooo,ooo.oo. Not a life was lost. Baltimore had at this time fifty companies and four hundred and sixty-three full paid men. Thirty-four companies came from other cities and over one thousand enrolled firemen worked. In San Francisco fire and earthquake April 19, 1906, at 5.16 A. M., destroyed four square miles, twenty-eight thousand one hundred and eighty-eight buildings, and the insurance loss paid was $252,000,000.00. The fire department was almost helpless on account of broken mains. Burning rags on a dump started a fire April 12, 1908, at 10.45 A. M., in Chelsea. Twenty-eight hundred and twenty-two buildings were destroyed, four hundred and ninety-two acres burned, and the taxable property loss was $12,450,000.00. Eighteen bodies were found and over three hundred injured were treated. The worst feature of the Salem fire was the fact that so many people lost their employment as well as their homes. |
