THE CHELSEA, MASS., CONFLAGRATION
Special report of FIRE AND WATER ENGINEERING.
Since the great fire of Boston in 1872, the Metropolitan district has not been visited with a conflagration that could even approach that which swept through a strip of territory, 2 miles long and in some places nearly 1 mile wide, of Chelsea, one of Boston’s suburbs, and on Sunday, April 12, wiped out quite one-third of the city in about six hours. It destroyed twenty business blocks, of which eleven were the property of the municipality, which was thereby one of the heaviest sufferers. More than two-thirds of the property in the city is owned by Hebrew residents, and Hebrews are at the head of most of the manufacturing establishments. The section which was burned is mostly inhabited by Hebrews, who have built up in the western part of the city probably the largest ragshop district in the world. The burned area (says one account) was in the nature of an ellipse about l’/i mile on its long axis and from one-third to three-quarters of a mile on its short axis and half a mile wide at its broadest part. The westerly end of the ellipse, where the fire started, was the most densely populated section of the city, the tenements holding from six to eight large families, many of them very poor indeed. The burned buildings, not .dwellings or among the 310 tenement houses, comprised, among others, the following: Thirteen churches; the elevated road station and barns; the city hall; the State armory; a convent ; No, 1 enginehouse—brick; two hospitals; five schoothouses; three banks (all of which saved their money and books in their fire proof safes in the basements and have resumed); the post office; twelve factories; the Masonic Temple and the Odd Fellows hall; and several thousand dwellings, tenements and stores. Among the factories were the following: The Standard Rope and Twine company; Feinberg and Sons; American Circular Loom company; Snow Iron Works; Russell & Son; Boston Blacking company ; Walton and Logan company. The first four of these companies were equiped with automatic sprinklers. The direct losses sustained by the city and private parties are estimated at $10,000, the insurance on which is $7,500,000. The indirect losses cannot he estimated with any pretence at accuracy. The loss of life, so far as is known was twelve persons; the l ist of the injured, many of them firemen, is a long one, and 10,000 persons were rendered homeless. For the spread of the fire or fires (for there were really two at the beginning) incendiarism is blamed—one of the suspects being a man whose own house was destroyed. A fierce gale was blowing, and, as the district burned over was essentially wooden, the rapid spread of the flames may easily be accounted for without laying it at the door of firebugs. Whatever less combustible buildings were in the path of the fire, sprinklered or nonsprinklered could not stand the intense heat and were consumed with the others. Many of the best buildings in the city, residential and other, were reduced to heaps of ruins, in common with scores of ragpickers’ establishments (Chelsea practically owning that business), owned and controled by Hebrews. The fierce northeast wind carried burning embers down the harbor as far as Nantasket and Cohasset setting fire the roofs in these towns. The flames first reached out towards the northeast, then swept south for some blocks, crossing Broadway, the city’s chief thoroughfare, in the afternoon, and to Marginal street running along Chelsea creek, quite a mile distant from the place where the fire started. By the early evening embers which had been carried by the wind across Chelsea creek set fire to the Tidewater Oil company’s three huge oil tanks on its East Boston side, causing them to explode with a roar that was heard 10 miles at sea and all over Boston, but hurting no one, and, owing to the isolation of the tanks, not setting fire to the many wooden tenements on the waterfront. Just at this point and at that time one of Boston’s biggest and most powerful pieces of fire apparatus, engine No. 1, was destroyed. The trolley cars, also, had to’be abandoned in the streets because of the fierce heat, and many of them were burned. The streets swept by the flames included Carter, Maple, Spruce, Arlington, Ash, Walnut, Poplar, Chestnut and Cherry to Broadway. From Broadway the fire spread to Bellingham Hill. From Summer street the fire took another course, running diagonally across Third street, Everett avenue and Fourth street to Bellingham street. The flames reached Broadway, the principal street of the city, at a point between Third and Fifth streets, and estroyed the Masonic hall, Odd Fellows’ hall and Bennett block. The blaze started on a big and wide dumpi. g ground on the marshes fringing the Boston and Maine railway, where quantities of rags were spread out to dry, with no one to look after them or drive off smokers or drive off mischievously inclined boys. Whether someone threw away a cigar or cigarette butt among the rags, or boys (as was reported) set fire to them, or spontaneous combustion was set up is unknown. The flames, however kindled, were not extinguished and soon reached the works of the Boston Blacking company in the rear. The buildings of the company were of wood and formed a long row. There was stored in them a large quantity of old rags and papers, among which some think spontaneous combus tion had set uo. The buildings were soon ablaze, and the fire department, wnich was not called out at once, on its arrival caused a general alarm to be turned, in. The department could have managed that fire—it was really nearly under control; if a second, by some supposed to have been incendiary, but probably the result of sparks cr burning embers falling unperceived upon the wooden buildings of the Rosenfelt Bros’ 3-story rag factory, had not broken out half an hour after the first had been discovered. Thatriwas soon one blaze, and the fact that apparatus sufficient to operate upon the flames could not at-once be brought into service, without causing extra risk to arise from the adjacent burning factory gave the fire every chance to spread. Boston immediately sent assistance; but by the time it arrived the Chapin and Soden Car Works were afire, and the immense quantity of tarred paper stored on these premises created such a dense and suffocating smoke that the firemen were badly handicapped. Fire Chief H. A. Spencer telegraphed for additional aid; but before it could be on hand a dozen factories and tenement houses lying to the west of Everett avenue had caught and were blazing furiously. Further help was then telegraphed for from Boston and all the adjoining towns. Four alarms were rung in the Boston circuit, and all the apparatus and men that could be spared from that city was hurried across the harbor. Assistance came from fourteen different places. Twelve engines, as many hose wagons apiece from Lynn and Cambridge; one Boston; two steamers, a fireboat and two hose wagons each; the same amount of apparatus wagons and each from Lynn and Cambridge; one steamer and one hose wagon apiece from Waltham, Revere, Malden, Somerville, Newton, Everett and Medford; and trucks, hose wagons and a steamer or two from Haverhill, Wakefield, Winthrop and Salem. It was hoped the flames would be under control before they reached Everett avenue. The hope was not fulfilled, as was shown when the roof of the African Methodist church on Fourth street, where the usual Sunday morning services were going on. In twenty minutes only the ashes of the edifice remained. The burning ashes and the intense heat forced the firemen down the avenue southwards, where for some time they fought hard to keep the flames from attacking the heart of the business section and to confine them between the avenue and the railway tracks—an area half a mile square in which were several schoolhouses and four churches. All of these were wiped out. It was impossible to confine the blaze to the west of the avenue. The burning embers started fires every here and there from the avenue across Broadway. The poorer tenement houses and the residential portion of the city between Broadway and the waterfront were invaded the northeast from Everett avenue; whole rows of business establishments on Broadway succumbed. The Fitz Public library, the Frost and the Children’s hospitals went up, as did the Masonic Temple, the Odd Fellows’ hall and twelve business blocks. Here were many brick buildings ; but they, too, went up like tinder, unable to withstand the exposure to the intense heat and the flying embers. Broadway was swept west to within a block of Chelsea square, the Fitz library being the limit on the main street to the East. Late in the afternoon the fire seemed to be held in check at Chelsea square. Between Broadway, however, and the waterfront to the south was a mass of flames. When the fire reached City Hall square at the junction of Park and Washington streets, perhaps,*he greatest damage was done. Four churches, including one on Hawthorne street, and all the buildings in the square, except the city hall, were ablaze. The city hall, a brick building, widely isolated from the others, went last—-all within thirty minutes. The flames spread very rapidly down Maverick, Congress and Essex streets, and a big, solid fourstory brick block, apparently quite removed from danger and, as it was hoped capable of acting as a stop for the flames, went down with a crash in thirty minutes. On the southeast side, house after house collapsed, and whole streets were swept away. The waterfront factories, buildings along Maverick and Marginal streets, including No. i brick fire enginehouse, were wiped out, and people had to fly for their lives from round about towards Revere. A sudden and far resounding explosion told of the destruction of the Tidewater Oil company’s three tanks with their thousands of gallons of oil, the dense, black smoke from wdiich served to smother the lire in the flying embers and to rit~ct hat was left of Chelsea for at Ica~t a mile ea~.twards. The firc had now burned westerly 1⅛ mile in length and with an average breadth of three-quarters of a mile cutting tne city diagonally from northwest to southwest between Chelsea square on the southwest, and Sixth, Library and Bellingham streets on the northwest. On the waterfront, where the Boston fireboat did good service, the rapid course of the flames caused great alarm for the safety of the shipping. Several tugs, however, came to the rescue, and, with the exception of two schooners that were moored near the oil works and were slightly damaged, all the vessels were hauled out of danger, hire brands were blown across Chelsea creek to East Boston, and five dwellings on Wadsworth street and its neighborhood were burned. The Boston fire department, which had lost an engine at the oil works, and had rendered grand service, was hard pressed right here at 9 p. m. to prevent the fire from spreading. The East Boston works of the Standard Oil company arc in close proximity to the burned dwellings, and for quite a long time it was feared that they would be destroyed. The work of the firemen was directed especially towards preventing an explosion of the oil tanks, and, regardless of their own personal danger, they stuck to their posts and succeeded in saving the neighborhood. It was late on in the night before the remainder of the city was safe, and even then there was every possibility of a fresh outbreak. Those firemen, who had received no hurt, were well nigh exhausted from the severity and long continuance of their labors, and the poor people whom the flames has dispossessed and robbed of all their property were in the direst straits for food and shelter. Happily the Federal government, the State, and the municipality nobly rose to the occasion and speedily relieved the immediate distress.
A PHOTOGRAPHER’S IMPRESSIONS.
A photographer, who specially took for FIRE AND WATER ENGINEERING the photographs from which the accompanying illustrations were made, gives his impressions of the scene:
“I have been so on the jump since the fire. You ask me some of my own impressions of this, and I will mention a few as I recall them. In the first place—it was blowing. You could hardly stand tip at times, and the dirt from the streets and smoke and cinders from the fire made it almost impossible to see anything at all. * * * The thing that struck me most forcibly (next to the wind) was the seeming absence of any attempt to put the fire out on street after street.
I mean that there was a great number of streets where the fire was raging on both sides, and not a single line in sight. As it advanced, the people would move out, and in due turn building after building would go, when, if there had been but one good stream, it could easily have settled matters in that particular spot. I suppose the territory was so large that there was not apparatns enough, and all the firemen could, they concentrated it in the business section. Wherever a stand was made by the men with a good line, the wind was so fierce that the w’ater would seldom reach the building, and would all blow to spray and be useless. These facts relate to the poorer residential section. The gale carried embers to long distances, and started other fires, which spread and joined, making it seem like one large one, which in reality it was,. I saw one line plnyiug in the basement window of a little grocery store in the Jewish district, and the smoke was thick with kerosene oil, while, as a matter of fact, the lire had not reached, and did not reach ibis building at all, stopping at least three houses away. The streets, after the fire had passed along, were as clean as if they had been swept, not a particle of dirt or cinders, only the very heavy material such as bricks, etc., which can be accounted for only by the wind having done the work. That the heat was terrific there can be no doubt, for along the curbstones, there are great broken places, large pieces being chipped out, and this in the wooden district, where there were no walls to fall on them. From the Boston side the view was something grand, Chelsea being just across the river from Charlestown, and the smoke and flames rolled along for the whole distance, 1 noticed in one street, several couplings and the connection of a large suction, where some engine had pulled away in a hurry At the hydrant nearby, the threaded parts had been melted out of the post itself, and were lying on the ground, the solder running down from the opening looking like an icicle. In places on Washington avenue, the car tracks were so warped and twisted that it was hard to drive over them. 1 went down in an automobile, and had on the ordinary goggles, and was glad to keep them on after I got there. As very many of the injuries were to the eyes, I should think it would be a good thing for the firemen to have something of the kind, for they were immense. I was all down through the thickest of it, and not once did I suffer in this way. The photos I have sent were about all 1 could get, there being a sameness all round, and nothing high to get up on, except the very building where 1 was. Almost everything had gone down flat, and the whole territory presented a graveyard appearance. Only the heaviest buildings left any walls standing, such as the churches which I sent, even the nice new armory showing hardly any walls. The cause for such a fire, according to my opinion, was the wind, for, no matter how quickly the start might have been put down, the flying brands bad set many more places going, and, the first thing anyone knew, if was spread over several blocks, which, in turn, spread many more. And so it went on, being beyond the power of any department to check.”
THE WATER SUPPLY.
Superintendent Cassell, of the Chelsea water department, writes as follows as to the water supply during the fire:
“CHELSEA, MASS., April 20, 1908.
“In regard to the pressure and volume of water during the progress of the fire, I will state that, so far as the pressure is concerned, it ranged from 5 lb. up—this, while many house-supplies also large supplies for sprinkler-systems in buildings ranging in size from ⅝⅜-in. to 5 in. were wasting water on account of the buildings being burned and the pipes melted off. In many cases the firemen had to run from the hydrants without closing them, on account of the swiftness with Vyhich the fire reached them, and, in consequence,V these hydrants were left open, with the water running to waste. This same thing also occurred in connection with three fire engines that had to be abandoned and destroyed in consequence. I may say here there was not a break in the main water system of any kind, and that the water supply did not fail at any time. There were a great many fire hydrants directly in the path of the fire that had the hose and steamer nozzles melted off, and many, also, had the brass hydrant nut which opens the hydrant melted off. As all plans showing the distribution of the pipe-system in the burned district were destroyed in the fire— in fact, everything from a tack to a pumping eugine was burned—I regret I cannot send you one. The fire started in the extreme western part of the city and cut a swath through to the extreme eastern section—about a half a mile wide. The wind was blowing a perfect gale from the west, and on account of this the fire spread with great rapidity. I was in it from start to finish, and 1 can assure you it was the hottest proposition 1 was ever up against. All my property was burned to the ground, and, taking this together with the loss of the waterworks, I have a job on my hands that will keep me busy for some time. You ought to make a visit to the city, for 1 believe from what 1 have been told about great fires that have taken place in other parts of the United States, this is the cleanest job of the kind that has ever happened, and you would, in my opinion, be amply paid for the time spent in doing so. The eye and tongue cannot describe the immensity of this thing, and all took place in the short of period of six hours. There were over thirty engines at work on the fire; but after it arrived at a certain point, if all the engines in New England had been here with an Atlantic Ocean of fresh water the fire would have burned just the same.”
Chelsea (it may be noticed) was incorporated as a city in 1857. Till 1638 from 1634, it was a part of Boston. It owns its gravity waterworks, the source being the Metropolitan water supply. Its reservoir capacity is 1,000,000 gal., the reservoir being located on Powder Hill. Under favorable conditions, the fire-pressure is from 50 to 70 lb. It may be added that the National Board of Eire Underwriters received a report on Chelsea from its committee of engineers, which called attention to the inadequate financial support accorded to the fire department, the undermanned companies and the reliance on “inefficient call men,” the “unsatisfactory type” and “large slip” of two out of the three engines, the insufficiency of the chemical service. The discipline and methods of the department were called “fair;” hut drills and training were “lacking,” so that the whole service was inefficient. The fire-alarm service was efficiently managed; “but corps not adequate for proper supervision on and maintenance. * * * * Circuits at present mainly overhead and in poor to fair condition. Boxes not provided with keys attached or keyless doors. * * * Service fairly reliable.” The conflagration hazard (it was pointed out) was “mainly moderate. In parts of certain districts extensive local fires arc probable, unless cotitroled in their incipient stage, owing to the fire department. The hazard is increased on the whole by the lack of adequate building laws, the large amount of frame construction with wooden, shingle roofs and the weakness of the fire department; but the fairly satisfactory water supply in most districts, fairly reliable fire system and the powerful outside aid are mitigating features.”
