The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1891-05-27
ROASTED ALIVE.
4 Train Caught in a Pennsyl.
Vania Forest Fire.
Disaster 0vertakes a Crew Of
Seventy Men.

A dispatch from Condersport, Penn says:
The pretty little lumber and farming towns
Of Austin Costello, Galeton, and Moores
Run are oA< <he verge of panic two especial
ly being threatened with annihilation from
fires that seem to form an impenetrable wall
on every side.
For several days and nights the skies have
been lighted with fires in almost every direc-
tion. Farmers and lumber camps have sue-
fered most heretofore, but now the fierce
and snaky lines Of fame have crept steadily
toward the towns until they are in great
danger, and every possible effort is being
made to save them.
At Moore's Run. on tie picturesque Slime
mahoning road, train load of seventy-tive
milling men sent from Austin had bean
fighting back the fire with every means at
their command. 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 another point, wnsn
it was found they wers hemmed in by the
forest on one side and huge skidway Of logs
on the other. 1t was decided to dash past
the burning skidway. and the engineer and
fireman with faces covered with
dampened cloths, and their hands and
arms wrapped in wool, mounted the little en-
gine. and pulled out through the wall Of fire.
The seventy-fve exhausted men gathered in
groups on the fat cars for protection, or lay
on their faces on the floor. As the blazing
furnace Of logs was approached the heat be-
came unbearable and the smoke so binding
and sitting that the men were obliged to
cover their faces with cloths.
The engineer had forgotten that such
great heat would spread the rails, and he
pulled the throttle wide open in the hope of
sooner escaping from the torments OF heat
and smoke.
There was lurch, an ominous heaving,
aud shrek as the train toppled over into
the fire. The cars caught fire as so many
cigar boxes would, and the men within
them, half blinded and scarcely realizing
anything except that they were being slowly
roasted to death, struggled desperately back
upon the track, where only for the time
at least safely lay.
Those uninjured from the wreck and only
smarting from the pain Of intense heat
turned their burned hands to aid their more
unfortunate fellows.
Superintendent Badger, of the Sinnema-
honing Valley road, was in charge of the re-
lief train that had worked the hardest of all
When the train was ditched he must have
been injured so as to be unable to help him.
self. Owing to the smoke and panic he was
not found until too late-fastened down in
the wreck he had evidently slowly roasted to
death.
Six others also perisned, and thirty others
of the party were baily burned, many prob
ably fatally, owing to their inhaling the
flames. Seven others are missing, and their
fate is yet unknown, though their bodies ara
probably among the charred remnants OF the
train and logs.
Relief parties started for the scene as soor
as the news was known, many relatives oi
the missing men insisting pom accompany
ing the train. Owing to the great devasta
tion, communication is badly interrupted.
AS to the damage, it is known that 40, 600,
900 feet of hemlock logs and timber and 25
900 cords Of valuable bark have already beer
destroyed, sndthe fires are still raging with
out any appreciable diminution.
A million beacon lights seem burning from
every mountain and hillside, and the air is
so oppressive that many workers faint from
exhaustion, and have to bs dragyed away.
The fires have been raging for forty eight
hours, and twelve miles of lumber territory
have already been burned.