Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1891-05-16
Plunged INTO THE FIRE.
Workmen Meet Death in a Blazing
Forest.
An Attempt to Run a Train Through the
Fire Causes Terrible Wreck,
Owing to the Spreading Rails.

An Auempt to Kun Train Through the
Fire Causes Terrible Wreck,
Owing to the Spreading Rails.
despatch from Coudersport, Pa, says:
The Pretty little lumber farming 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 apparen-
tly IN every direction, but little fears were en-
tertained by people living III the towns, as
those threatened and in danger were farmers
IN the country districts or lumber camps in
the midst Of the blazing forests.
In spite Of every effort, however the flames
erept in snaky lines of smoke and fame to-
ward 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 Sinnemahoning road,
traln-load of seventy five willing men, sent
out from Austin, had been fighting back the
hre by every conceivable means. They made
trenches, piled up earth and lighted baekfires
but were finally obliged to retreat.
The men hastily boarded the train and
started TO make run to another point, when
II was found that 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 the en-
gineer and fireman, with faces covered with
dampened clothes and hands and arms wrapped
In wool, mounted the little engine and pulled
out through the wall of fire. The seventy-tive
exhausted men gathered III groups on the flats
for protection or lay on their faces on the
Az fl,rnh
preached the heat became unbearable and the
smoke so binding and sitting the men were
Obliged to cover their mouths with clothes.
Just opposite the millions of feet of burning
logs, where the heat and smoke and flame
were the greatest, a terrible accident occurred.
The engineer had forgotten that such great
heat would surely spread the rails, and he
pulled the throttle wider in the hope Of sooner
escaping from a torrent of heat and smoke.
Then there was lurch, an ominous heaving
and shrek of despair as the train toppled
over into the fire. A scene ensued never to
be forgotten by those who escaped, though
every man will bear to his grave a mark OF
that awful moment.
The cars caught fire like so many paper
playthings, 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 time at least. Thus uniniured
from the fall, and only smarting from the pain
of intense heat, they bravely turned their
burned, blaekened hands to aid their more I'M
fortunate fellows. Superintendent Badger, Of
the Sinnelnahoning Valley Road, was in
charge of the relief train, ana 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 he was slowly
burned to death. 1t is known that six others
also persisted at once or died soon after, and
thirty others of the party were badly burned,
many probably fatally, owing to fears that
they inhaled the flames that seemed to fairly
party are missing and their fate is unknown,
though they are likely to be in the charred
wood of the logs of the train.
A wrecking party started for the scene as
soon as the fearful news spread Many rela
tiyes of the men injured insisted on occom-
panylng the wrecking 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 communication
is badly interrupted, and it Is impossible to
learn the names Of the men burned or those
still missing.
As to the damage, ii is known that 10, 900, 900
feet of hemlock logs and timber, and p, 600
cords of valuable bark has been destroyed, and
the fires are raging without any appreciable
diminution. A million of lights seem TO be
burning from every mountain and hillside
and the air is so oppressive that many workers
thint from exhaustion and are dragged away
from flame that has done nothing as yet but
steadily advance.
The body of Superintendent Badger has
been found burned to crisp, and the entire
party would have persisted in the burning
train or forest fire, had they not immersed
themselves in creek.