The San Francisco call., 1895-12-21
Narrow Escape of the British
Ship Hiawatha From
Destruction.
DUMPING THE COAL OVERHEARD
Pumping Water Onto the Burning
Cargo Through the Hatches
for Days.

The British ship Hiawatha, Captain
Jorgensen, arrived yesterday, 164 days
from Grangemouth, England, and 1O7 days
from Pernambuco, with 1900 tons of COAL
Her narrow and providential escape from
destruction by fire in the cargo at sea may
be best told in Captain Jorgensen's full
and complete memorandum, which is as
follows:
Left Grangemouth Roads on the 9th of July
Passed to the north of Scotland. Had light
and variable winds down to 80 deg. north,
where we got the northeast trade winds, which
were light and variable throughout. Lost the
northeast trades in IA deg. 10 min. north and
after a couple of days OF variables we got the
southwest monsoon. On the 18th of August
in deg. 80 min. north. 10 deg 56 min. west,
noticed a strong smell OF coal gas coming up
from the fore match. Had the searching-rods
i'll the hatchways examined and found the
coal heated but no fire was observed. Being
sure that there was something wrong we had
ali the matches taken of and rods driven down
in different parts of the matches and after hay
ing had one rod down in the middle of the
main hatch for about fifteen minutes it came
out almost red hot.
Seeing that we had no time to lose. we i'm
mediately commenced to discharge Goals over
board from the main hatch. After a little
while smoke issued from the Goals the smoke
increasing as we worked down. About seven
feet below the main deck, in the middle Of the
hatch, we found the Goals on fire. which was
put out, but very dense smoke issued from
the lower hold on the port side. We pumped
water on the Goals, but it did not seem to have
much effect as we could not getit near enough
to the fire, SO we kept on discharging.
In spite of all our efforts we found that the
fire was gaining on us all the time, and the
heat and smoke became so suffocating that the
men could not stand it in the hold more than
about ten minutes at q time.
On the 18th flames burst out from the Goals
on the port side of the hatch. We had q GUAM
tty of water pumped on the Goals and got the
flames subdued and proceeded again with the
discharge; had the steaM-donkey working all
night. Flames were bursting out from the
Goals every now and then, but we got them un.
der control again by mpng on water.
On the 18th of August we had got down on
the lower hold, about seven feet below the
beams on the port side. We were then down to
the second fire, and the Goals were mixed
with ashes and burning Goals and the fire was
reaching from the middle of the main hatch
and aft to abreast of the mainmast. We then
commenced TO pump water on the Goals, and
after about one hours pumping the smoke and
heat were decreasing, and at noon we had the
fire in the main hatch eXtinguished.
After having mastered the main hatch we
found that the heat in the fore and after
matches had increased TO very serious extent.
We commenced to trim up Goals from the
middle of the hatches and worked down about
fourteen feet deep from the deck in both
matches, where we found the Goals so hot that
they burned the fingers when taken in the
hand. We had to pump water on to stop them
from taking fire.
On the 21st of August we found the Goals in
the fore part OF the main hatch again on the
point of taking fire, and seeing that under
such circumstances it was impossible to pro
ceed, we resolved to put In to Pernam-
buco, where we arrived on the oath of
August. We got into port on the Goth, dis
charged 573 tons of coal, and left again OH
the 10th OF September.
The remainder of the voyage to San
Francisco was uneventful, and the captain
had no more trouble with fires.