The Portland daily press., 1898-02-17
FIRE ON MERRILL STREET.
1t Was Pretty Hot Blaze and Looked
Dangerous at First.

| Last night aDOuJ ulHe ciock WHICH
the wind was bowling on Munjoy Hill
with the fury of small herricane. a
passer by on Merrill street smelled
smoke. On investigating he found that
the story and half wooden house num-
bered 10, and occupied by Robert john
son was on fire. 1t didn't take the man
yery long to reach box 121, at the corner
of Howard and Turner streets, and he
pulled in an alarm. Officer Heath got to the
house about the time the alarm was ring
ing in. With another man he broke in
the rear door of the house and found the
| back hall filled with smoke. A tub filed
with all kinds of inflamable material
seemed to be where the most OF the fire
was located. The police officer and the
other man did what they could with a
few buckets of water, but by this time
the fire had been famed into hot blaze
by the strong wind and went up into the
second story, threatening to sweep the
building out of existence and take all of
the other wooden buildings in the neigh
| berhood along with it. None of the
family were in the house when the fire
broke out.
| Engine two is located on Congress
street, only few blocks away from the
place where the fire occurred. The
engine went past Merrill street like an
express train and was on its way to the
box when the mistake was discovered.
1t was terribly hard pulling for the
horses through ice and snow and it took
this engine some time to get back to the
corner of Congress and Merrill streets to
the nearest hydrant. Meantime engine
five came up the hill after hard drag
and got into position. A hydrant stream
with hardly force enough to throw the
water on to the roof of the house was
got to work and engine five got steamer
stream up inside the house. The hard
pulling and the slippery condition of the
streets made the fire apparatus all late in
arriving on the scene and it was fully
twenty minutes after the alarm was
sounded before the firemen were getting
water enough to do much work with. By
this time the fire in the wooden house
had worked its way up through the roof
and was blazing fercely. The wind blew
the smoke down into the street and car
ried the sparks and cinders from the fire
for many yards about the neighborhood
which is composed almost entirely Of
wooden houses.
Chief Engineer Eldridge said that a
fifteen foot ladder would have been OF
great help to the fireman i'll the begin
ming of the fire and would have saved
very much trouble and considerable loss.
Last nights fire was another good argu-
ment for the location of a combination
j hook and ladder truck and chemical
engine on Munjoy Hill. A piece of ap-
peratus of this kind would have made
the firemen's work much easier last
night.
\ After overcoming all kinds of obsta-
cles and battling against the strong wind
IN the severe cold, Chief Eldredge
and his men succeeded in drowning the
fire out.
The building was owned by Walter
Richie and the back part OF it was
pretty badly damaged. There is some
insurance on the building but how much
is not known. $500 will cover the loss
to the building. The furniture OF MIR.
johnson was not insured and some OF it
was badly damaged by smoke, water
and fire. The cause of the blaze is not
known. 1t was terrible night for a
fire and had the blaze got the upper
hands of the firemen it would have been
bad night on MunjoY Hill.