El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1901-02-14
FIRE!
FIRE.!
FIRE :!

building and its contents were a mass
of flaming. glowing. soaking wreck
age The fire had been burning nearly
two hours. The firemen poured water
into the wreckage until long after 9
o'clock
Work of the Department.
There seems to have been some kick
ing against the work of the fire depart
ment last night and apparently a large
part of it was unwarranted.
1t is the opinion of many reason
under which the department worked
that the boys did splendid work.
The department was at the scene of
the fire in its usual good time. but the
water mains in the neighborhood of
the hotel are too small to give suffi-
cient water to fight such a fire as the
one last night.
The plug at the corner of the hotel
to which the hose was first attached is
of the old style with only a two and a
ing to it is small. Besides these short
comings the fire was raining down in
that vicinity and drove the boys away
The horses were exposed to a shower
of fire which scorched them up con-
siderably before they were moved.
The engine was compelled to move.
The nearest five-inch plug was on the
corner of Texas and Stanton streets
and much time was lost in getting the
engine there and the hose attached to
the plug. 1t is clear that this delay was
no fault of the departments. and one
of the firemen said this morning that
the water company is not to blame
either. for it is complying with its
contract
Il think the boys did good work"
said Chief Powers this morning. "des-
pite the talk on the streets to the con-
trary. People are saying that they saw
the fire and that it could have been
put out with a bucket of water when
the alarm was turned in. Whoever
makes such a remark knows nothing
time the alarm was turned in. 1t was
all under the roof. though invisible to
the people on the street I helped to
build that roof and know that it was
mass of frame work that would burn
like kindling wood.
And people are saying that we had
no water playing on the building for
long time. There were two big
streams playing from the rear OF the
building which they could not see.
Within eight minutes from the time
the alarm was turned in the hook and
ladder company had the aerial ladder
up and were playing the best stream
of water obtainable on the fire.
THE volunteer firemen were excit- |
ed" said a paid man this morning.
"and there were too many sidewalk
firemen yelling instructions. The paid |
hook and ladder company do NOT drill |
as they should and they have so few /
occasions when it is necessary to use |
the ladders that they are not prepared |
to handle them. They should drill once |
-
in working order and know how to-
work them. And again people expect
us to be equal to full paid depart
ment when we only have eight paid
men,.
IF we didn't have complete alarm II
system we would have been in a pretty
muss last night" said one of the lad
lies, for there were four alarms turn
ed in in quick succession. If we hadn't
had a three-circuit repeater we would
have been so badly mixed up we would
not have known where to go: but af-
ter the first alarm was turned in the
others were cut OFF. The first one was
from No. ~. which was the proper one
Then some people lost their heads and
pulling at boxes all over
Town. No. 81. away down at the far
-her end of Myrtle avenue was r,Ing"
James Reese. who was a member of
4 fire department in Galveston for six
years and is now driver of the chemical
d..