The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-08-12
FIRE IN COAL POCKETS
MORIIZ SPIER'S YARD DAMAGED
 $IS,OOO TORTH YESTERDAY.

Narrow Escape of q Man in Charge of n
 Coal Barge-The Tug Rambler as n
 Fire Boat-Firemen by Hard Work
 Kept the Flames from Adjoining
 Coal fards-A Freight Train Stalled.
 The coal pockets of Moritz Spier's
 coal yard on Railroad avenue were al-
 most entirely destroyed by fire yester
 day afternoon. About 2:30 James Gal
 lagher, the engineer, discovered tbat ire was raging on the roof of the en-
 zine room and ran to the office, from
 which still alarm was telephoned to
 No. As house. A few minutes later an alarm was rung from box 93 at the Grand avenue police station and this was followed in a few minutes by 8 second alarm. Large crowds of people were attracted by the second alarm and the streets leading down town were
 thronged with hundreds of people has,
 tening to see what the fire was.
 It is thought that the fire either orig mated from a spark from the smoke stack of the coal yard or from overheat- ing or the boiler. At any rate, the blaze started in the engine room roof and had gained considerable headway when dis covered by Engineer Gallagher. A strong northeasterly wind was blowing and carried the flames from the engine shed to the coal pockets, which were son enveloped in flames.
 The fire department responded very promptly and by vigorous action pre- taI tJ1a ino to bert's yard and McCusker & Schroed- CTS coal yard, which adjon the Spier yards on either side The wind car ried the sparks and flame over to Me- Cusker & Schroeder's sheds, the roofs of which caught fire in many places These incipient blazes were extinguish- ed by the firemen and citizens who as- sisted.
 In the Spier coal pockets there were at the time of the fire about 400 tons of stove coal, 250 tons of soft coal 300 tons of soft coal, and 75 tons of nut coal!
 A barge load of coal intended for the l.. Candee company was tied up at the dock adjoining the burning pockets and caught fire. On the barge was a lame man who when he saw his barge ablaze placed his trunk in a small boat and jumped in the boat himself. He then picked up bucket and began dipping water and pouring it on the burning sides of the barge. While he was do- ing so, some of the timbers of the der rick work on the dock fell and just grazed him. If the falling timbers had struck him they would undoubtedly have crushed him to death.
 The tug Rambler steamed up to the barge while she was blazing and turned a line of hose on her, extinguishing the flames which were confined to the cabin The Rambler then hitched to the barge and lowed her outside the danger line of the fire. A rope which was attached to the large hoisting der rick on the dock was fastened to the | barge and as she was lowed out by the tug the rope became taut and pulled | over the derrick, which fell with a crash into the coal yard engine room. It was thought at first that some firemen were fighting the fire in the engine room of the coal yard at the time and that they were caught under the falling mass Later investigation proved, however, that all the firemen had left the engine room.
 The coal pocket contained nine bends each of which had capacity of 250 tons of coal. In the middle ''bend' was soft coal and this became gnited, while the hard coal did not catch fire so rapidly. The flames swept over it. but there was not time to ig- aite before the firemen had subdued the fire.
 The coal pockets are said to have been the strongest wooden structure in New England and the center beam or mast was mammoth piece sixty feet ong, which weighed a ton and half The pockets were built of yellow pine.
 Moritz Sper stated last night that the .otal loss would be about $1S,000. He said that he had the building insured for $10,000 and some insurance on the stocks and equipment. He thought that 1is loss over and above insurance would ,e about s7OO0. He said that the fire would not cripple his business, but hat it would continue as usual to-day.
 Several lines of hose were laid across he freight track of the Consolidated