The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1904-02-26

nre out. Ine METHODS OF the New
Workers. sxe SO different from those of
u own men that it IL impossible to
compare them except to say that the
New York fireman looks out for a good
place where he can stand and shoot his
hose at the fire. The Baltimore fire.
man goes right in after it. Our men
push their way into buildings in order
to throw their energies where they will
do most good. The New Yorker is all
Eight, but his idea seems to me to be
that of long range artillery.
In regard to the reports that no
lives have been lost, l desire to say
that while W. all wish that it might
be true no reasonable man can believe
1t. How does any one know that NJ
one has been killed by these falling
walls OF suffocated in the acres of
burning territory in which men were
struggling for dear life in the last few
minutes? Our firelnen have taken
enormous risks. Private citizens, try
ing to save property, have gone to
great lengths, and not until the ruins
are cleared will it be known Low many
lives have been lost. A fire is a very
seductive foe. In the lumber yard dis
tricts n might often notice that those
who were permitted to go behind the
lines would be lured by their own in.
terest in a peculiar point of attack into
remaining much longer than was safe.
Suddenly somebody would call atten-
ton to the approach of flames from al
other direction, and the way the group
that lad collected would run for their
lives was Il striking sight. 1t does not
stand to reason that in all of these
brushes the fire has been deprived Of
its prey. l expect to see quite a death
roll when the results of this disaster
have been tabulated.
81 have a terrible walk before me to
get home tonight, since the cars have
stopped running, such as I would have
in few other cities. Baltimore has
grown so rapidly and it's suburban
communities extend so far that the
prostration of it's electric car lines
works peculiar havoc. l have wished
many times that this were a smaller
NASyy WAC4C L SOu40 1--WE AOdlCl lily
work. But I suppose l must accept
this as one Of the penalties entailed by
Baltimore's growth. In Chicago / un-
derstand that much of the pavement
was of wood and SO burned up too. You
will notice that our pavement has been
undisturbed by eve a calamity of this
magnitude, and the showers of brick
and stone that have fallen upon it will
leave it no more irregular than it was
yesterday. I tell you. Baltimore is a
great city and never showed it more
than today"
An experienced fire fighter who saw
the Chicago disaster in 1871 relates
that certain phenomena then observed.
but Of the rarest occurrence. could be
plainly noticed on the night Of the
fire. He says: "a building would be
aglow at the r of a block, but the
rest Of the line perfectly dark and APP
parently safe for the time being. Sud-
denly a building half a block away
would be seen all aglow inside, and
almost with the promptness with
which electric lights may be turned
on in the different parts of a theater
the buildings one after another would
blossom forth into this brilliant glow
and would soon be in flames. The heat
was so intense that everything leaped
into fame in the entire region affected.
This is the trouble with big fires
their cumulative force is not offset by
any corresponding increase in the eff
cheney of fire fighting apparatus. Twen-
ty engines will throw only twice the
water of ten. Twenty buildings in
flame, IN the other hand, will produce
conditions four times as favorable for
the spread of combustion as ten build
tngs and perhaps forty times as IA
vorable. Certain it is that a great fire
outruns the fighting apparatus of the
world, and it is only by checking q
fire in its beginnings that the worst re-
suits can be avoided" ~
HAPTIRE OE THE NARlAG