The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1898-12-29

through the black curtain issuing from the
flames before they reached terra firma
All the whistles were shrieking out the
alarm and the light of the flames could be
seen for miles around. In half an hour
multitude of people were the grounds,
powerless to render assistance In two
hours the plant was apparently a mass of
ruins and at the time it was believed by
every one connected with it that every por
ton had suffered damage that could not
be repaired except by total reconstruc-
ton.
The presence of mind of some of the en-
ployes in uncapping the coke ovens saved
additional damage to the extent of thous-
ands of dollars.
The crowd fingered around the scene for
hours and the early morning electric cars
were crowded with sight-seers from Bir-
mingham who had read the news in the
Age-Herald.
Not a Tangled Wreck
The plant last evening did not present a
scene of tangled pipes and wreckage. On
one of the tipples tons of slack" were
burning. and those tons will continue to
burn all night, for the frame work of the
tipple is of steel, and it will doubtless
stand in place when all the coal is con-
sumed
fhe two lines of ovens are there intact
and so are the great stacks and the large
boilers that receive the tar. and the con-
densers, and the tracks, and the treste be-
yond the ovens-all of the great plant in
fact, except the trestle over the two lines
of ovens, and the tipples, and the frame
distilling house, and the machinery house.
which stood between the ovens. The fire
was confined to the frame houses in which
it satrted and the two tipples and the
trestle connecting them. They are gone,
but it is believed the engines, six in num-
ber are not materially injured and that
the damage, all told, will not exceed 100000.
and may not exceed one-half of that figure.
Men are busly engaged in clearing away
the wreckage of the fire. and in a day
or two all the damage can be accurately
ascertained.
The plant will be speedily restored, and
the best opinion in Ensley is that the work
of restoration can be accomplished inside
of three months, and it may be possible
to make coke very soon, but the various
by-products cannot be treated until the dis
tiling house is replaced. Not an oven was
injured, and the fourth battery of thirty
ovens was ready to be lighted tomorrow.
The plant consists of four batteries of
ovens, each battery containing thirty ovens,
and these ovens are placed in two parallel
lines about one hundred feet apart. In
each line are two batteries, and between
the batteries of each line was tipple
which was destroyed. as also was the high
trestle that connected them.
The DstillIng Plant
In the space between the two lines of
ovens was placed a couple of frame build
ings in which the ammonia and other by
products of the coal were distilled and re-
distilled. Why these frame buildings were
placed by the general management between
two lines of fires, no one can imagine. 1t
seems to have been due to stupidity in the
engineer who planned the works, and the
management who adopted his plans.
This stupidity was heightened by equal
stupidity in the local management; for the
oil supply of the plant was kept In a room
of the machinery house, amid fires on every
hand, and it was in this oil room that the
fire started. To cap the stupidity that pre-
vailed in the concern, not foot of hose
could be found on the ground floor or any
other floor. 1t was up three flights Of stairs
on the top of the entire structure.
William Osts life was sacrificed by this
stupidity in the local management. He went
to the roof to get a section of hose, and
before he could get it and get down from
the roof the flames and smoke rushed up
on both sides, and all possibility Of escape
was shut off. He was a Pennsylvania
who had been in Alabama about six
months. His sister and brottcr-in-law live
in Ensley, and he lived with them. No
other accident occurred during the fire.
The fire started in the oil room Of the
machinery building, and spread at once
from that to the frame distilling house.
and from these buildings it spread to the
tipples and trestle
Too Much Wood In Them
There was too much wood in all of them.
The oil supply was indiscreetly stored, and
the frame buildings supplied the fuel for
the fire that occurred. 1t is safe to say
that no more frame buildings will be placed
between the ovens, and that the oil supply