The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-08-28
FIRE AT SEA.
Not Necessarily Alarming to Expert
enced Sailors.

Kansas City Journal.
The Lawrence Journal is of the opinion
that lone of the braveSt acts of this war
was the fighting of that fire on board the
transport. while the soldiers remained in ig-
norance of their awful danger. For thirty
six hours, the crew, sworn to secrecy, bat
tied the flames that were ready to break
out, taking no rest and every man standing
at his post Greater heroism could not be
imagined Commenting on this an old
sea captain now in Topeka discourses as
follows:
This item evidently was written by what
in the coal bunkerS of ships are a very
common occurrence. / will warrant you
that there were half a dozen of such fires
in our fleet before Santiago. They are COM
mon in the Atlantic liners, coming from
spontaneous combustion caused by piling
large quantities of coal in close. quarters
There isn't much danger in such a fire,
hardly any at all on an iron ship. The first
thing to be done is to exclude the air, when
the fire can only smolder. Then the bunker
Is flooded with water, which usually serves
to put the fire out. Even in wooden ships
the danger is not half so great as it is pic,
tured by people who never sailed. will tell
you an experience of my own. Many years
ago / was first mate of the ship Two
Brothers. We were in the wheat trade pc,
tween San Francisco and Liverpool ana
We're coming back from Liverpool with
Loco tons of coal in the hold as ballast
Just after we rounded Cape Horn it was
discovered that the coal on fire. we
had a steam pump on board, and after
closing the lower matches, we flooded the
nOlu until the snip had serted ABOUT AVn5s
feet further in the water Then we stopped
and let her burn. No one was frighteneu
and all of us were confident we could bTlhs
the ship into port. We put in at Nalpa-
raise for fresh water and provisions, pul.
though the chance was present not a man
deserted the ship.
ITO make long story short. we were
seventy-two days in reaching Frisco from
the Horn, and all that time the coal burned
and little streams of smoke could be seen
coming through cracks in the deck. ArTiV-
ing at Frisco we sailed out on the mud udes
and flooded the ship until she settled almost
even with her upper deck OF course thiS
pump out the water and hoist out the coa
to be well af1oat again. ] wish this Law
renee editor could have seen the interior "a
the ship after this was done He would nave
better appreciation of what snip cai.
stand In the way of fire. In a dozen pIdcS35
tnat was between us and the deep sea w.
the thin sheet of copper with which the poess
tom or the ship was covered. The welBnt -
the coal and the pressure of the water So
an equal strain on both sides of the copy.
sheeting and ii had not broken, though -
was little thicker than an ordinary TN pan
There was one place where this copper We
exposed in a place as big the top Oh
barrel.
What would we have done if the copper
had given way? Oh. we would have tdksH
to the small boats and made for th0 AHlei.
can Shore. We were never more alia- ,at
couple of hundred miles from 1t. But Wiass
/ started out to say was that the sailors -
that ship with the Manila fleet or tFaIspolss-
would laugh If they knew the America - -,
pers were making heroes of them. Nestv
the sailors nor the soldiers were IN az ~
danger at all. The vessel was an ron W ~
and II was surrounded by other vessels .
10 fleet