Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1891-05-14
INTO A FURNACE.
Awful Plunge Of a Relief Train IN
Pennsylvania
RESULT OF FOREST FIRES RAGING.
The Train Wrecked I'm the Flames
Desperate Efforts to EscsPe-Unsuccess-
full In Many Instanees-At Least
Seven Burned to Death.

PITTSBURGH, Pa, May 12.-At Moore's
Run. on the Sinnemahoning road,
train load of seventy-fve willing men
sent out from Austin Sunday night
fought back the forest fire raging IN
the region by every conceivable means:
They made trenches, piled up earth and
lighted back fires, but were finally
obliged to retreat. They hastily board
ed the train and started to make
run to another point when
It was found they were hemmed
in by the forest fire on one side and
huge skidway of logs on the other.
II was finally decided to dash past the
burning skidway, and the engineer and
fireman with faces covered with damp
ened cloths and 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 unbear-
able and the smoke so binding and
Lut luCh NCIC ODAl5CA ~ Nv -
their mouths with cloths. Just oppo-
site the millions of feet of burning logs,
where the heat and smoke and flame
were the greatest, the engineer, who
had forgotten that such great heat
would surely spread the rails, pulled
the throttle wider in the hope of sooner
escaping from a torrent of heat and
smoke. Then there was q lurch, an
ominous heaving and a sbrieS and the
train toppled over.
The cars caught fire like so much pa
per, 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 the
intense heat, turned their burned,
blackened hands to aid their more un-
fortunate 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, of the Sin
nemahoning Valley road, was in charge
of the relief train and had worked the
hardest of ali to save the property OF
others. When the train was 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. damned in the wreck, he had
evidently slowly burned to death.
It is known that six others also
miserably perished at once, or died
soon after, and thirty others of the
party were badly burned, many prob
ably fatally, owing to the fears that
they inhaled the flames that seemed to
fairly spring into their faces.
Seven others of the party are missing
and their fate is not known, though they
are likely in The charred wood of logs
or train.
Relief parties started for the scene as
soon as the fearful news spread, Many
y men injured insisted on accompanying
the train, though they will hardly be
able to reach the place of the wreck
unless the fires have burned themselves
out
Owing TO the great devastation done
70 everything in the way of the fire
communication is badly interrupted and
it is impossible to learn the names OF
the men burned or those still missing.