The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-11-01
GREAT COAL BINS AFIRE
L. 6 N. ROADS MOUNTAIN OF
 FUEL STILL BURNING.
Fire is Eating Heart of the Mammoth
 Pile and Tons of Coal Must Be Removed to Reach It.

Probably the most remarkable fire that ever occurred in Alabama is raging at the North and South yards of the Louis vile and Nashville in Montgomery. 1t Is burning on the interior of the gigantic coal bins of the road.
 Imagine great mountain of coal, men working hard to load immense buckets of a steam hoist in operation at the foot of the coal mountain-and an idea of the scene at the fire is obtained.
 The fire has been burning for solid month now, and while during that time the work of digging down to 1t has been going on necessarily, the end is not yet in sight. How the fire originated is d
 mystery. The theory of spontaneous comuston has been advanced and is clung to by number of people connected with the Louisville and Nashville.
 Yesterday, however, a railroad man ad- vanccd theory that seems on the face of 1t to be extremely plausible. His idea Is that several weeks ago when the big chute had just been completed and was being loaded with coal several switch engines were kept busy all day pulling cars of coal up on the elevated track leading to the tipple on top of the chute. Live ashes and sparks from the ash pans of these engines dropped among the beds of coal below could have started fire without the knowledge of anybody, the fresh coal being dumped down with all the speed possible.
 No matter what the origin of the fire, however. It's there, and there in all probability 1t will stay for five or six days yet.
 The immense chute was built by Super intendent Newbolds, South and North division of the Louisville and Nashville to try and keep the numberless locomo- tivcs coming and going between here and Birmingham supplied with fuel, the Mobile and Montgomery division engines also being supplied there. It IS possibly the largest and most extensive affair of the kind in the South. and the amount of Louisville and Nashville money spent on 1t amounts to an exceedingly large sum.
 In the woodwork of the structure there is in round numbers half a million feet of lumber-most of this lumber is pine and that makes it easier for the fire to take hold of 1t. The stringers are the heaviest kind of timber and cost $SO thousand.
 The capacity of the chute is 27OOO tons of coal and as it was very near full the great quantity of the black diamonds can be estimated. From end to end 1t is 1.275 feet long and 40 feet in height from the top 10 the bottom or inc HdiiiAii"'h pile
 Since the fire was discovered some weeks ago. forty-three cars ot coal nave been taken out of the bins "a small average of cars capacity Is thirty-hve tons and in round numbers 1,5O5 tons Of coal have been taken out. This does not Include the daily consumption or the engines, fourteen cars being required to fead the monster iron horses daily.
 About a hundred yards from one end of the chute steam hoist as at work the coal on the other side having been taken out. There are five immense buckets with a capacity one ton each with this steam hoist, and five laoorers filling them with coal as fast as they are unloadcd.
 Night and day work like this Is going m and it will be several days yet before the location of the snolderlng nre- which Is directly at the bottom ana about half way the distance of the chute-is reached.
 These cars of coal are taken in every irection-Flomaton, Pensacola Mobile. and even as Tar up as Decatur. The extent of the damage done by the fire, of course. is proolematical