River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1891-05-14
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PERlSHEQ BY FIRE.

ing Pennsylvania Forest and Seven Per-
sons Are Known TO Have Lost Their
Lives-Many Others Terribly Burned.
CoUDERsPoRT. Pa May II. The pretty
little understanding towns OF Austin,
Costello, Galeton and Moore's Run, in
Potter county, are on the verge of
panic, two especially being threatened
with humiliation from fires that seem
to form an impenetrable wall
on every side. For several
days the skies have been lighted
up with fires apparently in every
direction, but little fears were enter
tanned by people living in the towns,
as those threatened were farmers in
the country districts aud the lumber
camps in the midst of the blazing for
ests. In spite of every effort, however.
the flames crept steadily, in snaky
lines of smoke and flame, toward the
helpless towns until it was seen the
people must fight back the flames or
have their very houses burned down
over their heads.
At Moore's Run, on the pretty Sim
nemahoning road, trainload of
seventy-five willing men who had been
sent out from Austin Sunday night had
been fighting back the fire by every
conceivable means They made
trenches, piled up earth and lighted
back fires, but were finally obliged To
retreat The men hastily boarded the
train and started to make run TO an
other point, when it was found they
were hemmed in by the forest fires ON
one side and huge skidway of logs on
the other 1t was finally decided TO
dash past the burning skidway, and tho
engineer and firemen, with faces COW
cred with dampened cloths and their
hands and arms wrapped in wool,
mounted the little engine and pulled out
through the wall of fire. The seventy
five exhausted men gathered in groups
on the flats for protection, or lay on
their faces on the floor. As the blazing
furnace of logs was approached the
heat became unbearable and the
smoke SO binding and sitting the men
were obliged to cover their mouths
with cloths.
just opposite the million feet of
burning logs, where the heat and
smoke and flame were the greatest, "a
terrible thing occurred. The en-
gineer had forgotten that such
great heat would surely spread
the rails and he pulled the throt-
tie wider in the hope of sooner
escaping from the torment of heat
and smoke. Then there was lurch,
an ominous hearing and a shrek of
despair as the train toppled over into
the hell of fire beneath. A scene en-
sued never to be forgotten by those
who escaped, though every man will
bear to his grave mark of
that awful moment. The cars
caught fire like so many paper
and the men within half
blinded and scarcely realizing anything
except that they were being slowly
roasted to death, struggled fearfully To
regain the track where safety lay, for
a time at least. Those uninjured from
the fall and only smarting from the
pain of intense heat bravely turned
their burned, blackened hands to aid
their more unfortunate fellows.
At this hour it is impossible to secure
details, though enough is known of the
scene that followed the hurting of the
struggling mass of men into the furnace
of flames to say its like had never oc-
CURED before. superintendent Badger,
superintendent of the Sinnemahoning
Valley railroad, was in charge of the
relief train and had worked the hardest
of all to save the properties of
others When the train ditched and
rolled over so suddenly he must have
been injured so as to be unable to help
himself, and owing to the smoke and
panic he was not found until too
late-iammed in the wreck, he had
evidently slowly burned to death.
1t is known that six others
also miserably persisted at once
or died soon afterward and thirty
others of the party were badly burned,
many probably fatally, owing to their
inhaling the flames that seemed to fair
" spring into their faces Seven others
of the party are missing and their fate
is unknown, though they are likely to
be found in the charred wood of the logs
or train. Relief parties started for
the scene as soon as the fearful news
spread. many male relatives of the men
injured insisting on accompanying the
tram, though they will hardly be able
to reach the place of the wreck unless
the fires have burned themselves out.
The body of the superintendent has
been found burned to a crisp and the
entire party would have persisted in
the burning train or forest fire had
they not immersed themselves in a
creek. The fires have been raging
forty-eight hours, twelve solid miles of
lumber in ono district have already
been burned.
Owing to the great devastation done
to everything in the way of the fire
is badly interrupted.
and it is impossible to learn the names
of the men burned or those still miss
ing AS to the damage, it is known
40, 900, 900 feet of hemlock logs and tim
Der and 25, 900 cords of valuable bark
have already been destroyed, and the
fires are raging without any apprecia
BILE diminution.
The people are praying for rain, "a
it seems nothing but drenching win
quench the flames that have grown SC
fierce they must either be eXtinguished
by the floods of heaven or burn out for
lack of material. million beacon
lights seem to be burning from every
mountain and hillside, and the air is SC
oppressive that many workers faint
from exhaustion and are dragged away
from a flame that has done nothing as