New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1914-05-06
Fire Damages
Meth. Church
OVERHEATED CHIMNEY CAUSE
LOSS OF NEARLY
100000.
SCHOOL CHILDREN ALL GET
OUT SAFELY WITHOUT
CONFUSION.

Fire damaged the German Methods
church building Monday morning to III
extent that combined with the damage
done by the water will cost somewhere In
the neighborhood of $4,000 to 100000
to repair. The fire was confined to the
region of the chimney from the furnace
in the basement and was seen too soon
to allow it to spread to the surrounding
wood work but the water that was poured
in to extinguish the flames that had
worked all the way up from the basement
to the roof and were eating their wa!
thru when the iremen arrived did great
deal of damage to the plaster and the
steel ceiling will have to be partially
torn out to make all right again.
The cause of the fire was evidently a,
overheated chimney which was scon-
structed of bricks overlaid with lath and
plaster. One of the sills of the building
came in very close proximity to the
chimney and there was but single brick
between it and the heat within the CHM
ney. The fire had been built Monday
morning to make the rooms warm EMU
for the children who are attending school
there. After building the fire, T
Scheiderich, the janitor had gone back
to his duties at the public school building
and the fire probably became very hot
and the overheated bricks ignited thu
woodwork about the chimney. At any
rate, the progress of the fire would seem
to indicate that was the situation.
1t was few minutes to nine O'Clock
when the school children reported u
their teachers that there was considerable
smoke in the basement room and, at the
same time those on the ground floor
spoke of the great amount of smoke In
the air outside the church. At first the
teachers thought the smoke settling
down was blown there from some other
building as the condition of the atnes-
phere has been such for several days that
the smoke has fallen instead of rising
as usual. But suddenly the girls in the
Normal department. which has a small
room on the main floor of the church saw
flames breaking thru the chimney which
was located in the room next to theirs
There is a window between the eve
rooms and it, was thru this opening that
the flames were seen. An alarm WAS
promptly turned in from the FIRE box
I1n OF l, l.
children were hustled out of the building
until 1T was seen that they might safely
return to get their books They wess
dismissed for the day with orders tu
return Tuesday morning as their rooms
were not damaged except that the
floors were wet and the seats in disorder.
The fire had worked its way for "a lew
feet along under the floor of the main
body of the church but its progress there
had been very slight. It's main work
was done in the chimney shaft and there
it had consumed a path up the side OF
the wall thru the lathing on the side of
the chimney that formed a part Of the
the wall of the main room of the church
and it had also eaten thru the chimney
wall into the Sunday School room. A
space about foot wide was torn out ali
the way to the roof by the fire men il
order to get at the flames and they also
broke thru the roof just before the flames
had made an opening. The damage
ontinued on last page.