Arizona republican., 1918-11-03
STABLES BURN
 AFFAIR GROUND
 S20,000 LOSS
Three Racing Horse Barns,
 Three Hundred Stalls and Swine Shed Destroyed; Barely Save Amphitheater

Fire at the state fair grounds yes- terday which started shortly before 2 o'clock in a horse stable north Of, the amphitheater destroyed a quarter or a. mile of stables within 20 minutes and caused loss to the state of $2O,- 900 as estimated by members Of the fair commission.
 The large amphitheater was threat ened with destruction during the whole of the time the stables were burning, and only, the fact that there was little wind blowing at the time was the amphitheater saved.
 | Starting in the running horse stalls back of stable D, the fire spread with almost incredible rapidity in both dl- rections, consuming the running horse stables along the fence, constituting | 300 stalls, the three race horse stables adjoining and the swine display shed, thus making a clean sweep of every thing along the west side from .he automobile building to the northwest corner of the fair grounds.
 Fire is Checked
 | At that point the fire was checked | from jumping across the corner gate to the north row of stables by the or ganization of a bucket brigade that secured water from an irrigation ditch and succeeded in stopping further progress at time when it seemed that the grounds would be completely circled by the flames.
 Fire equipment from station 3 re- sponded to the alarm, with the fire chief in personal command. Two lines of hose were laid immediately from the small fire plugs on the ground and all the efforts of the firenen were di- rected toward preventing the flames from reaching the amphltaeater, tEat huge structure being only about 50 feet from the burning stables.
 Horses Are Saved
 | EmployeS and hoStlerS about the fair grounds were quick to act in removing the horses from the stables at the first alarm. There was a report current during the fire that one of the thor oughbreds had been removed three times from his burning stable ard lad returned each time, finally to his death, but this was not correct. No horses were lost.
 Just what was the origin of the fire could not be determined. although it was said to have been caused frcm a gasoline stove used for cooking pur- poses b ysome of the horsemen, but this has not been thoroughly estab- liShed. The fire sent up {. great vol ume of smoke and attracted hundreds of people from the city and surround ing country. Within shcrt time af- ter the alarm was given, automobiles were racing toward tho far grouncs The most of them arrived to see only the last of the group of stables so uI in flames, so rapid was the fire.
 Origin Unknown
 s Lester Sellman, one of the horsemer :, at the grounds, stated: T have no idea how the fire started. I saw the flamse shooting up from the running stable back of D stable, and ran to get my : horses out. One of them crowded mt f into the corner of. the stall and bott r thehorse and myself got pretty wei Q Scorched.
 Cecil D. Boyce, secretary of the state fair commission, who was on tn, ground early directing whatever eff forts were possible to save the entire Il plant from going up in flames, es r timated the loss at s20,000 which i nearly all covered with insurance
 Probably 100 people connected witt the various racing stables were ren
 dered temporarily homeless by tn = destruction of the stables where the, y were quartered. A trunk containini o clothing and Liberty bonds belongin' g to Lester Sellman was destroyed whil = the owner was assisting in removin
 the horses to safety. There were onl
 40 head of horses in the stables, man
 having been removed at the postpone :, ment and later cancelling of the fai 9l this year.
 :. Good Riddancev |.
 We do not consider the fire a ca
 lamity,' said T. D. Shaughnessy, mem
 Der of the state fair<commission, las
 night. The stalls that were burne J. were wrongly located and but for thei = frailty would have been removed lon 10 ago. When new sheds are built the will be placed on the east side of tn D track on the back stretch as is tn le custom in modern fair ground plant
 The new stables will, in all probabilit
 be constructed of concrete.
 i The space cleared by the fire wi
 be beautified and part of it will |
 utilized as automobile parking spac
 In the matter of fire protection for or
 grounds, we asked the legislature for
 years ago for funds to put in an adt
 quate system, but were refused. I'll
 grounds are laid with four-i inch mair
 and equipped with fire plugs. all cor
 nected with a 10000 gallon tank. IT
 city mains are a mile away, and Il
 only solution of the fire protectic
 problem is to install our own plan
 This hope We may be able to do tn
 year from the funds made availab e.