Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1898-01-26
TUNNEL FIRE
 STILL BURNING!
Combined Action of Heat and Water on the Rocks Cause Heavy
 Caving From the Top.
Serious Interruption to Traffic Some of Which Has Been Di-
 verted Via Prescott. e

The editor of the JOURNAL MINER visited the burning tunnel of the Santa Fe Pacific railroad Tuesday afternoon, at which time a volume of smoke was pouring out of the east end of the tunnel, giving the mountain, from 6 distance, the ap- pearance of an active volcano. The heat at the entrance to the tunnel was so intense that one could not approach it closely.
 The fire is supposed to have been caused by sparks from the engines which pulled the east bound pssssn- ger up the mountain on Sunday morning. The east bound and west bound trains met at Riordon, sid ing between Williams and Flagstaff, and on the arrIval of the west bound train at the tunnel it was Tagged and the watchman reported the fire to the trainmen. That train pulled through all right and word was at once sent to Williams and an eugine and crew were sent down and a stream of water was directed against the burning timbers. On account of the wood being covered with cor rugated iron it was 8 difficult mat ter to get at the flames, but during the night it was thought that the fire had been completely eItinguish- ed. On Monday morning the flames broke out fercer than ever and it was while fighting the flames on that day that Road Master Lyons met with the accident that caused his death. MT. Matthews, foreman of bridges, was not as seriously in jured as was at first thought, as the doctor attending him telegraphed to the tunnel Tuesday afternoon that he would pull through all right.
 Division Superintendent Hibberd arrived on Monday aud directed the work towards e1stinguishing the flames and on Tuesday morning General Superintendent \ G. Wells arrived by special train from Los Angeles accompanied by John De- nair, division superintendent of the western division. Chief Engineer R. B. Burns had a corps of mvn at work surveying 6 rouI for s'shoo fly" around the point of the mountain on Tuesday but this was found i'm practicable and the only thing left to do was to clean out the tunnel. job which will require several days.
 A feature of the interior of the tunnel, and one which causes the fire to burn so long is the fact that at point near the center of it, 6 large cave was encountered. In order to to prevent the rock from dropping down and breaking the roof of the tunnel, several car loads of cord wood were slowed away in the cave and it is this amount of timber which is DOW burning.
 Passengers, mail and express and local baggage are transferred around the mountain from one train to an other. Through baggage both ways is being sent around by the $. F. vis Deming. Two car loads of baggage destined for the east came down on Tuesday afternoons tram through Prescott to be transferred at Phe- nix to NJ. & P. rosd and thence to the Southern Pacific.
 The limited trains both ways are being run over the Southern Pacific via Deming and Albuquerque and will continue till traffic is open again.
 Several train loads of oranges were caught between Needles and the tunnel, and a special train of six teen car loads passed through Pres colt this morning en route east via the Southern Pacific. IL was re ported that there were still between forty and fifty car loads awaiting shipment from Ash Fork.
 The second train load of oranges passed through Prescott at noon and was followed by another at 2 o'clock. The fourth train left Ash Fork this afternoon.