The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-11-08

ham Railway, Light and Power company was stopped up by tar and 1t required A little over six hours to remove the pipe, clean 1t and put it back.
 The car shortage is said to be respon- sible for the conditions. General Manager Emery of the Birmingham Railway, Light and Power company, states that owing to the inability of the company to get fresh supply of coal sufficiently large to meet the needs of the paint, coal from a heap several months old had to be used
 
 story of the building for the first time. Smoke had been pouring through the windows in immense clouds for ten or fifteen minutes previous to the appearance of the flames. It was only few minutes later that the flames burst out or the front windows on the second. third ana fifth floors. As the flames would burst from the windows and leap into the air they added much to the spectacular na- ture of the fire.
 By 1o:4O o'clock the roof had caved in at the rear and as each section fell IL would send the flames and sparks higher and higher. Before Il o'clock the rear
 walls had commenced to crumble and fall, spreading the fire into the empty | building which was occupied until re- gently by the Avondale laundry. A few minutes after Il o'clock portion of the side wall on Avenue A fell out. The
 wall of the fourth and fifth stories for about fifty feet fell. In the rear practical | ly all of the wall as low as the second story caved in. leaving the walls at the
 north and southeast corners standing. l A portion of the wall on the north side
 of the building, which was solid and had
 only one opening. fell in about Il o'clock. The front walls and a portion of the side
 walls are still standing.
 Spread of Fire.
 When the rear walls spread they car
 ried the fire into the portion of the two story building on Avenue A occupied by
 the Philip Carey Manufacturing company,
 which carries roofing supplies, pipe cast | ing and large variety of other goods. This building was practically gutted, as
 was the old Avondale Laundry building. | These two building served 10 prevent the
 fire from spreading into the other ware
 house of the Moore & Handley company, I which Is on Avenue A and Twenty-first street, just in the rear of the building l burned.
 The fire was one of those with which no l fire department in the south could cope. | The Birmingham department has no mod | ern apparatus for throwing streams of 1 water into the upper floors of such | building The old extension truck was | placed in front of the building and did effective work, but it required such | length of time to erect 1t that it was ! practically useless in preventing a spread | of the fire.
 l Five engines were pumping water from | about fifteen lines of hose into the build | ing. The fire was first fought from the
 south side of the building The firemen
 used the walls of the Seaboard abutment | as protection and were able to stay with in a short distance of the flames, the | heat from which was terrific. In the front tue flames ran the firemen back | for some time.
 l The flames did not spread to any other
 building At one time 1t was feared that
 the Martin Cracker company building on | the south side of Avenue A might catch,
 and that the sparks from the fire might | ignite some of the smaller buildings, but
 water was kept on them from small lines
 of hose and they were saved. The wind | was not blowing very briskly and to this was probably due the fact that the fire | did not spread any further. With a | fierce wind 1t would have been almost im- possible 10 have stopped the flames where
 they were checked.
 Crowds Large.
 The crowd that witness the big fire was the largest that has been attracted to confagration in Birmingham in a long time Second only to the jam on October
 "A, when the President was here, was the surging mass of humanity that lined
 Twentieth street from First avenue, on
 the north side of the railroad, to Avenue , c on the south, a distance of five squares,
 to say nothing of the crowd on intersect- | ing streets.
 | With the first arrival of the fire en- zines went large number of people, | and when the flames had leaped from the
 rear of the third floor to the roof with almost a single bound, a few minutes later, the police could hardly keep the people behind the danger line In fact hundreds ventured to stand on the side
 walk, in doorways and staircases directly
 opposite the burning building. These were
 scattered right and left. however, when there was a succession of explosions, fol-
 lowed by clouds of dense smoke and | shooting flames that illumined the scene | for long distances.
 | Long before the southeast corner of the building gave way and fell, the Bijou | theatre had let out, and this brought many more people, including hundreds of women. Then came the Jefferson crowd, among which were number of handsome women in evening dress. Clothes were foreotten for the time being, and little