Many Lives Lost in Three Big Fires Last Week

Firefighter LODDs: CHICAGO, PHILADELPHIA, AND CINCINNATI THE CITIES AFFECTED. FIRE MARSHAL HORAN ONE OF THE DEAD.

Special Report of Fire and Water Engineering

Closing Chapter of the Chicago Stockyards Fire

Of the twenty-five men killed in the milliondollar fire which consumed a part of the Morris & Co. stockyard plant in Chicago last Thursday morning, the bodies of twenty, including that of Chief James Horan, have been taken from the ruins. The list of dead includes the chief, his assistant, William Burroughs; two captains, five lieutenants, thirteen city firemen, two private firemen and a railroad employe. The fire was first discovered about 4 o’clock, by a watchman in the Morris & Co. beef house, at Fortythird and Loomis streets. The flames spread so quickly the watchman barely had turned in the tire alarm before the flames began bursting from the building, Fire Marshal Horan, at his home on the West Side, heard the second call for fire apparatus, and hurried to the stockyards in his automobile. Bt the time of his arrival his assistants, who had reached the scene earlier, had abandoned the effort to save the beef house and were endeavoring to head off the rush of fire toward other buildings. Flames were billowing out of several structures nearby when the marshal arrived, and the inferno was blistering the hands and faces of the pipemen and laddermen, who were sticking by their positions under the encouragement of commanders, who themselves were burned and blistered. The shelter of the awning which later became the destroyer of a score of lives, was sought by firemen, led by Horan, Burroughs and Fitzgerald. On top of the canopy another group of firemen still played streams of water. Suddenly Lieutenant Joseph Mackey, leader of the brave band there, felt the wall going and shouted a warning to those beneath. He jumped with his crew and escaped death, but the men below the canopy were walled in by the collapsing bricks. Meanwhile, firemen who knew nothing of this, augmented by constantly arriving aides, were standing in the path of the advancing flames. They took their stand at building after building, only to be driven back each time, blistered and scalded, and with lungs congested by steam and smoke. Assistant Marshal Seyferlich, on whom now lay the command, realizing the futility of saving property then ablaze, drew all the men to one side and shouted: “We’ve got to let the rest of her go men. Get hack here and we’ll make a final stand.” Captain H. H. Fuchs, of Engine Company 29, who had just left Marshal Horan with orders for his company, walked out from under the fatal canopy just as it crushed out the lives behind him. “I’m all right, chief,” he told the assistant marshal a few minutes later. Blackened and blistered he was the only man left of his crew. Steady streams of water from one whole fire company which Seyferlich directed had somewhat cooled the fallen wall an hour after it had buried its victims, and Seyferlich declared at 10:30 a. m. he heard a voice. A shouted command brought another detachment of firemen from nearby posts, who tore at the pile of debris with bare hands, axes and poles in hope that some of the men were still alive. Four bodies were recovered in a few minutes. With the spreading of news of the fire many devices for clearing away the pile of smoldering wreckage above the huddled mass of dead were sent to the spot. A wrecking engine on the Chicago & Eastern Illinois railroad brought a derrick. A road scraper attached scooped up great masses of bricks and some of the firemen energetically pushed the great scoop into the brick heap in hope of reaching a man whose groans could be heard. The fire broke out afresh at 8 o’clock Thursday night after it had taxed the strength of the fire department for sixteen hours. Acting Chief Seyferlich sent a general call to outlying stations for fresh men. These, aided by police reserves, continued the fight on the fire and the search for bodies of the dead. Insurance men said that the killing of the chief and his men was not due to an ammonia tank explosion as at first supposed, hut to the expansion of cold air in the beef warehouse due to heat from the fire. This forced the four-story wall to give way and collapse. An overhanging wooden canopy fell from the beef house, where the fire started, carrying with it tons of red-hot bricks and debris upon two companies of firemen and the chief, crushing them to death and encasing their bodies in a veritable furnace, into which their comrades were unable to dig for several hours. Nearly all those who were not killed outright when the walls fell were roasted to death before help could reach them. The following is a list of the dead, so far as bodies have been recovered:

Late fire marshal James Horan
Late fire marshal James Horan

James Horan, fire chief.

William J. Burroughs, second assistant fire chicf.

Herman Brandenberg, lieutenant.

Patrick E. Collins, captain.

Thomas Costello, pipeman.

Nicholas Crane, truckman.

Edward J. Danis, truckman.

Nicholas Doyle, truckman.

Andrew Dymuran, fire watchman.

Stephen Leen, clerk Chicago Junction railroad.

Charles Moore, truckman.

Albert Moriarity, truckman.

George Maurauski, pipeman.

Edward Schonsette, truckman.

William F. Weber, pipeman.

George Enthof, pipeman.

W. G. Sturm, lieutenant.

Two unidentified firemen.

The Philadelphia Fire.

Thirteen firemen and one policeman met death when the walls of the Friedlander leather factory, at 1116, 1118 and 1120 North Bodine street, Philadelphia, collapsed last Wednesday night after the place had been destroyed by fire. This was the official toll of the dead when the hand of rescuers stopped digging in the ruins Thursday night. According to the an official statement Riven out by the department of public safety, in addition to those killed, twenty-eight firemen, seven policemen and one civilian were injured, some of them dangerously. Most of these were sent to hospitals, but physicians were unable to say whether any of them would die. One fireman. William Glazier, of Engine Company No. 6, was taken alive from the ruins after he had been imprisoned for fourteen hours. There is hope that he will live. His display of stoicism during these heart-breaking hours and the dauntless bravery of his rescuers were vivid exatnnles of countless acts of heroism and endurance. The theater of the calamity was a five-story brick building, said to have been half a century old. It was destroyed and the money loss is estimated at $83,000, The cause of the fire is still undetermined, but Director Clay is working on the theory that it was incendiary. The building had its main entrance in Bodine street, south of Girard avenue. It ran back to a small alley in the rear to within twenty feet or more of Third street, and from that point a covered entrance used as a wagon way, led to the street. It is conceded that the fire started on the Bodine street side, where the office was located, although even this is not certain. A policeman saw flames and smoke pouring out of the second-story window about 9:30 p. m. and turned in an alarm. Before the first relay of engines reached the scene a second alarm was turned in. These brought Chief Baxter, who lost no time in sending in a third alarm. In the meantime the flames nad spread with incredible rapidity. The firemen encountered a serious obstacle at the outset. The intense cold had frozen up most of the fireplugs in the neighborhood and but two were found that were serviceable. Hose was coupled to these and streams turned on the blazing building. Firemen began the work of thawing out other-plugs. By the time that these were ready for use, however, the fire had gone completely beyond control. Apparently the building was as as tinder. That condition with the stores of leather remains upon which they fed, increased the energy of the flames threefold. From floor to floor they swept onward and unward with awesome speed. They seemed to have selected the center of the building for their fiercest attack and in a remarkably short time had burst through the roof. Even then the firemen did not feel that they had anything more serious to contend with than a nasty blaze on a bitter night. They devoted their attention to saving the surrounding buildings and confining the flames to the leather factory. By 10 o’clock the interior of the building had been destroyed and the flames were beginning to die down to some extent. Then the firemen began the work of systematically stamping out the flames. The big water tower of truck 7 was shot up into the air alongside the Bodine street end of the building. A dozen firemen scrambled up the slippery rungs dragging a line of hose with them and turned a stream into the seething caldron within. Two score more entered the building. Some of them crawled up the stairs at the north end of the structure. From there thev clambered out on the hanging edges of the floors that had been almost burned away. Others reached the roof itself. Ladders were thrown against the Third street end of the building. The north and south sides were cut off by adjoining buildings, and these the firemen could not reach. Under the combined assault of the well-directed streams of water the fire was being gradually got under control, and until then not a single man had been even slightly hurt. It was just before 11 o’clock that Chief Baxter, standing on the sidewalk in front of the building in Bodine street, cast a glance upward and yelled to the men on the roof and upner stories to come down. With a fireman’s intuition he felt that there was danger. Eye-witnesses of what followed say they will never forget that scene. Each of the floors of the structure had carried its quota of heavy hags of leather remnants, piled for the most part against the walls. As the center of the floors weakened and crumbled under the attack of the flames, these hags had gradually shifted to the weakest part of the floors. The entire center of the roof had already been burned through and the edges were dragging dangerously at the towering walls. On the edges of the roof firemen worked with precarious hold. Tn the windows, through the smoke and darting flames, were framed the spectral figures of their comrades. On the ladders they citing like flies In the street and alley they clutched the lines of hose. And all were intent upon the task in front of them; so intent that but few of them heard the warning command of their chief. Baxter saw that quick action was necessary. He ran for the stairways, down which a torrent of icy water was pouring, and began to climb uo their dangerous length so that he might order his men out of a place which was already doomed, and where they could do nothing but risk their lives where the risk was not worth while. And then came the catastrophe. A huge section of the blazing roof crashed suddenly into the center of the burning building. A sheet of flame shot from the windows and blazed far out over the narrow street and the roofs of the bouses on the other side. The Bodine street wall shivered and swayed for a moment on its crumbling foundations, twisted half about and then hurled its whole length into the furnace beneath. Then the west wall toppled and crashed inward to pile on top of the mass that had been the east wall. Half of the south wall crashed next. A Cloud of powdered dust shot up and a blinding volume of smoke filled the air. For a moment the whole atmosphere was lurid. Then suddenly the dark fell as though a blanket bad been spread over the place. In the crash of the walls the electric lights were snuffed out and the great mass of material bad crushed down the flames which the water had been unable to subdue. Chief Baxter bad reached the first floor when the crash came and he was hurled down stairs. Half stunned, covered with dust and water, but only slightly injured, he was the first to give directions for the work of rescue. A hurry call went into the electrical bureau and in a trice every available wagon, the ambulances from five hospitals loaded with all of their emergency physicians, the whole corps of police surgeons and three hundred policemen were on their way to the scene. Then began the tedious and dangerous, work of rescue. Following is the official list of the dead:

Harry Bartolet, fireman, chemical No. 2, died in hospital.

William Bililmire, fireman, truck No. 1, died in ambulance.

John Carroll, fireman, truck No. 7, died in hospital.

John Collins, fireman, truck No. 4, died while being taken to hospital.

Charles Edelman, fireman, engine company 6, killed in ruins.

Thomas Entwistle, fireman, engine company 21, killed in ruins.

J. Frederick Kalberer, fireman, engine company No. 23, died while being admitted to hospital.

William McConnell, fireman, engine company 23, found dead in ruins.

George Matchimsky, fireman, truck No. 7, body recovered from ruins.

Samuel Parks, fireman, truck No. 1, died at hospital.

Thomas Pass, fireman, chemical No. 2, pronounced dead at hospital.

Robert Stewart, fireman, engine company 2, killed in ruins.

Gustave Wittig, fireman, engine company 15, died in ambulance while being removed to hos-

Three Killed In Cincinnati Fire.

The entire block of buildings in Cincinnati was reduced by fire in the early morning of December 21, 3 lives were lost, 6 were injured, 1 perhaps fatally, while the property loss will exceed $2,000,000. The origin of the blaze is unknown but the manner in which the huge buildings burned caused belief of members of the fire department and insurance men that it was of an incendiary nature. The fire, which started at 2 o’clock, was one of the most disastrous that the Cincinnati fire department has had to battle with for many years. At the time it broke out a high wind was blowing. When the flames were finally brought under control 10 firms had been burned out and 8 large buildings destroyed. An entire block from Ninth and Sycamore streets to Broadway was swept by the flames. The fire, it is believed, started in the engine room of the plant of the Krippendorf & O’Neil company. Hardly bad the fire been discovered when the flames leaped from almost every window from cellar to roof. When the fire apparatus arrived it was seen that the shoe factory was doomed and the firemen turned to the work of trying to save adjoining buildings. They practically surrounded the fire with water, but it had too much of a start and, aided by the wind, it continued to spread from building to building. While the fire was at its height a wall of the Krippendorf building fell and buried Robert Grear, a fireman, His body was recovered. Three other firemen were also caught by the falling wall and all badly injured. Another fire which broke out in the plant of the A. J. Nurre Manufacturing company, on Broadway, entailed a loss estimated at $225,000, and took a long time to control. It is supposed that sparks from the conflagration on Sycamore street, one block west, set fire to the Nurre plant.

Meterage

Lexington, Ky., with 35,000 population, has a daily average water consumption of 1,919,1144 gallons, 4.417 services, and 4,232 meters.

A special council committee, appointed to investigate the management of the waterworks at Oklahoma City, Okia., criticises the purchase of $10,000 worth of meters without the council’s consent.

Hartford, Conn., has a daily water consumption of 7,400,000 gallons. There are 11,868 meters in use.

Denver, Colo., has an average daily water consumption of 50,000,000 gallons, or 229 gallons per capita, 46,000 water taps and 350 meters. There has been little increase in the number of meters in service during the past five years and only on large services on which it is impractical to fix a flat rate are they installed. The National Board of Fire Underwriters recommends that the meter system be adopted and a sufficient number set each year to meter all services within five years.

After bemoaning the waste of water at Norfolk, Va., Water Commissioner Purdie says: “If this waste is due to defective house pipes it can be remedied by installing meters at a cost ot $100,000. The water department is now pumping seven and a quarter million gallons of water into the city each day, of which a little more than one-fifth is delivered to consumers who pay for it at meter rates. About 55,000 of our population are users of city water, so that the daily pumpage, exclusive of what is furnished at meter rates and what is used for city purposes, amounts to about 100 gallons for each of such persons.”

Water Commissioner Ward, of Buffalo, is quoted as saying “There is no question that meters would cut down water waste. As soon as a meter is put into a house the family begins to cut down the use of water. We estimate that 70,000 meters would be required to cover the city. These would be of various sizes, according to the service. It is a peculiar condition that water meters are unlike any other commodity—the price does not bear any relation to the amount of material in them. I believe an average of $20 each, with the cost of making connections, would be fair, although I have no doubt that it would run higher. That means a total cost for meters alone of $1,400,000. The average life of a meter is 15 years.”

Several months ago thefts of city water were suspected in Kalamazoo, Mich., and as a preventive measure all water service pipes, even private fire lines, were meterd. For a short time this had a good effect, and the pumps at the waterworks were easily able to keep pace with the demand. Now conditions have changed again and the pumps are racing as bad as ever and the water level in the wells has lowered. An investigation will be made to see whether some ways have been devised for beating the meters.

Defeated in its endeavor to have the city metered, the water department of Spokane, Wash., will probably try to get what is believes is the next best thing—a lower minimum meter rate and the authority to place meters to be paid for in small installments covering one or two years. Water Engineer Alexander Lindsay said: “A lower minimum rate on meters and a plan whereby a water user could install one and pay for it in monthly payments or in slightly higher rates covering a year or two would soon meter the city without making it compulsory.”

Fire Bids Opened.

BOSTON, Mass.—Bids were received for furnishing a combination chemical engine and hose wagon as follows: Combination Ladder Co.,

Waite-Robbins Motor Co., Inc., $4,200, $4,400; D. P. Nichols Co., $4,500; Webb Motor Fire Apparatus Co., $4,650; Dodge Motor Vehicle Co., $5,000; Arthur L. Waugh, $5,200: American-La France Fire Engine Co„ $5,500; Knox Automobile Co., $5,500, $5,600; James Boyd & Bro., inc., $6,250. The contract was awarded to the American-La France Company at their bid of $5,500.

ROCHESTER, N. Y.—The American-La France Fire Engine Company has received an order for two 50-gallon chemical cylinders for fire department wagons.

WHITE PLAINS, N. Y.—Bids for a motor combination chemical wagon were opened on the 20th as follows; Pope-Hartford, with 2 chemical tanks, $5,000; one tank $4,750: Webb Motor Fire Apparatus Company, $4,995; James Boyd & Bro., Inc., $6,250; Combination Ladder Co., $5,500; White Automobile Co., $4,750; American-La France Fire Engine Co., $5,800; or with one tank, $5,550; Locomobile Company, $5,000. The bids were asked on the same specifications, the car not to weigh more than 4,500 pounds, to carry two 35-gallon tanks, 1,000 feet of standard hose and 200 feet of chemical hose. For fire hose there were seven bids, the Eureka Fire Hose Mfg. Company receiving contract tor 500 feet of Paragon at $1.10 and the Gutta Percha Rubber Mfg. Company 500 feet at $1.20 a foot. The guarantee is for three years.

Water Bids Opened.

DUNKIRK, N. Y.—Bids on the proposed new boiler house for the city waterworks station were opened by the water commissioners as follows: The Dunkirk Mason and Contracting Company, $12,626.50; the Meritor Construction Company, $10,484, and C. A. Hager, $13,580. J. A. Taylor bid on the roofing for $790. The matter was referred to the board as a committee of the whole and Superintendent Candee for investigation.

TROY, N. Y.—Two proposals were received by the board of contract and supply for furnishing 4,300 feet of 12-inch cast-iron pipe for use in the bureau of water supply. Charles Miller & Son bid $21 per ton, and the United States Cast Iron Pipe and Foundry Company $21.15 per ton.

High Pressure for Boston.

A committee representing the National Fire Underwriters’ Association, headed by Chief Engineer George W. Booth, called on the mayor of Boston a few days ago to urge the installation of a high-pressure firefighting system for the city. The mayor told them that be was strongly committed to the system which has worked so well in New York and other large cities and would do all that he could for it if the committee could get the chamber of commerce to approve the system for Boston. He said that be did not feel like going to the legislature to find arguments for the system opposed by the business men of the city, as was done during the Hibbard administration when the project fell through. The committee told the mayor that it would be in Boston for some time and would bring the matter before the Chamber of Commerce; also that the members would take up the question of more stringent building laws, at the mayor’s suggestion. The committee was piloted all over the city by Fire Commissioner Daly, Superintendent of Streets Rourke, Building Commissioner Everett, Wire Commissioner Cole and Engineer McInnes.

Recent Patents.

978.241. Portable pump. Walter H. Van Winkle, New York., assignor to Waterworks Equipment Company, same place.

978,291. Automatic cut-oft valve. Francis Hodgktnson, Edgewood Park, Pa., assignor to the Westlnghouse Machine Company.

978.346. Device for for mills joints in pipes or mains. Matthew Yarrow, Smithills, Bolton. England, assignor to Yarrow & Company (Bolton), Limited, Bolton, England.

978.347. Machine for the manufacture of earthenware pipes. Matthew Yarrow, Smithills, Bolton, England, assignor to Yarrow & Company (Bolton), Limited, Bolton, England.

978.349. Water-pipe. Daniel Alton, Strathcona, Alberta, Cauda.

978.350. Rotary pump. James Baguley, Evanston, Wyo.

977,881. Suction-filter. Marry E. Kier, Colorado Springs, Colo.

978,385. Fire-hydrant, Herbert M. Lofton, Chattanooga, Tenn.

978,898. Hose-clamp. Joseph J. Richard, Pasadena, Cal.

978,447. Life-saving fire-escape. Kaslmlr Glawatzky, Philadelphia.

978,504. Jointing of pipes and the like. John G. Stewart, Glasgow, Scotland, assignor to Stewarts & Lloyds, Limited, same place.

978,571. Automatic fire-escape. Ambrose W. Faeh, Oakland, Cal.

978,597. Sprinkling-pipe. Oliver Jefferson Kennedy, San Diego, Cal., assignor of one-half to Patrick W. Sweeney, Los Angeles, Cat.

978,619. Hose-eoupifng. Bernard Morgan, Newport, R. I.

978,673. Double-acting horizontal power-pump. James M. Stratton, Salem, Ohio, assignor to the Deming Company, same place.

978,729. Gravity valve-cage and valve for pumps. Jesse R. Garber, Salem, Ohio, assignor to the Deming Company, same place.

978.770. Flexible fire-resisting shutter and slat therefor. Edward H. McCloud, Columbus, Ohio.

978.771. Flexible fire-reslsltng shutter and slat therefor. Edward H. McCloud, Columbus. Ohio.

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