Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-05-16

The fire started shortly after o'clock and 15 minutes later third alarm was | given. Half an hour after it was evident that the fire was beyond the control of the force then working on it, and general alarm called out every available piece ot | apparatus and every fireman in the city that could be spared.
 | At o'clock the entire block along the | west side of Fremont street from Walpole | to Burke was a brilliant mass of flames, which swept across to the opposite side | and soon engulfed the buildings for four blocks. The tons of water that had been | poured into the buildings from every side ] apparently had not the slightest effect and | the tongues of flame licked up everything in their path like so much finder. | By this time the residents of the tene- ments for nearly half mile around had become alarmed and were moving all their property into the streets and seeking for places of safety. So rapidly did the fire eat its way, however, that these in the blocks adjoining Fremont street did not have time to save their household effects and barely escaped with their lives. The streets were filled witlt frightened women and children, poor people who were trying to save a part of their small property and hurrying firemen and police men.
 Furniture of all kinds Filtered the side walks, and the firemen were greatly ham, pered by the Instructions.
 Progress of the Fire.
 By o'clock the fire had crossed Fremont to Cabot street and was yet beyond the control of the firemen. Again and again the gallant fire fighters made a stand and poured thousands of gallons of water upon the flames, but still they swept on, and it seemed as if nothing could stop them.
 Shortly after 6 o'clock several steamers arrived from Lynn, Salem, Beverly, Brook line and Lawrence, and every effort was made to stop the fire at Cabot street. But in spite of the vigorous onslaughts of the greater part of the Boston department and the assistance of the firemen from sur rounding towns the fire could not be checked, and not until it had burned from Cabot street half way through to Warwick street and north to Burke ,sSreet was the limit of the burned distriGfEon the south east side of the ball grou nds reached.
 While the firemen were fighting the de vouring flames on this side the fire was spreading from Walpole toward Milford place, on the southwest side of the ball grounds, and in half an hour all the build ings in this block were in ruins. Not here even did the fire stop, but burned on until it reached Ruggles street at one point, and consumed the houses on both sides of Chapel street, and laid low the structures on Sunbury street. At Ruggles street on the west and Cabot street on the southeast the fire was practically stopped, and at 7:30 it was under control and in no danger of spreading further. On the northwest side of the ball grounds the tracks of the Old Colony railroad prevented the confa- grafton from spreading in that direction.
 It is estimated that about 100 buildings have been burned and about 800 families rendered homeless. The fire was an un- usually hot one and one of the hardest to fight in the history of the Boston fire de partment.
 Three steamers-Nos. 24, B and 36-had to be abandoned because of the heat A bout 6:30 Chief Webster was forced to retire al most exhausted, with his face covered with blisters caused by the heat but he bravely returned to the battle soon after and urged on his men.
 A Look at the Ruins.
 After the conflagration was under con- trol the grounds of the Boston baseball team were thronged with thousands of anxious sghtseers. The familiar grand stand was no longer there. Nothing re- mained but the iron work and a mass ot smoldering ruins, with but single pillar of brick left to stand as monument.
 Looking toward Fremont and Cabot streets, one vast waste of fallen walls and smoldering ruins met the gaze Of those on the desolated ball grounds. Many west end street railway employees were burned out, and hundreds lost all their effects. On the streets just without the burned dis. trict goods were strewn in every direction. Many outfits of entire households were hopelessly mixed up with goods from neighboring houses, and many who owned goods created stirring scenes in their eff forts to recover their lost property.
 Women holding little children frantical ly looked for relatives without success and in many cases women were carried of by officers in fainting condition. Ire mont street for a distance of several hun dred yards is strewn with wreckage, bro ken coils of street railway trolley and feed wires, bedticking and hundreds of feet ot hose burned to a crisp, while rivers of wa ter covered the street. On one side three abandoned fire engines, twisted into an almost unrecognizable shape, indicated only too surely the strength of the foe the valiant fire laddies had to contend with. The engines were abandoned long before the confagration was at an end, and the flames spread with such surprising rapid ity that it was impossible to rescue them in time. The new house of Ladder 12 and Alderman Bryant's residence on Walpole street and his store on Fremont street were also totally destroyed.