New-York tribune., 1920-07-11

Nine Dwell llings, Factory
Building and Piles of
Lumber Are Destroyed
IN Forlr Alarm Blaze
40 antilles Are Homeless
Many Structures Menaced
BY Flames That Start
III Ship Company's Office

tire Snat StRrteQ In the once OF tne
James Shewan q Sons, ship repairing
company, At the foot Of Twenty seventh
Street, Brooklyn, shortly before noon
yesterday, destroyed property valued
at from $250,000 to $500, 900 and called
for four fire alarms before it was got
under control. Eleven slightly injured
persons were treated bv ambulance
surgeons at the scene Of the fire.
Famed by a stiff breeze and fed by
piles Of resinous timber, the fire spread
rapidly. In the hour before scorched
and bitterly fighting iircmen had halted
the flames they had:
Burned great pile of pine and
spruce lumber in the Shewan yard.
DESTROYED q row of eight two-story
frame dwellings, cac tilree-story dwell
ing and store and four-story brick
building, the factory of the Bayside
Sash and Door Company, at Third Ave
nue. and Twenty-seventh Street.
Consumed q lumber pile owned by
Frederick 2. Starr, head Of the Bayside
Sash and Door Company, and pile Of
cakum thirty feet high.
Twenty Families Homeless
Twenty families we're made homeless
BY the blaze, which destroyed virtually
everything they had in their homes.
For time it seemed as though the
blaze, which spread with amazing ra-
pidity, could not be checked at all.
Smoke from the burning oakum and
70 IC 1nx,,
whole district and inspired many fam
lies out of the danger zone to pack up
and prepare to run for it.
The blaze was discovered at 11:20 in
the morning in small Office building
OF the Shewan Company, just south of
Third Avenue on Twenty seventh
Street. What caused it has not been
determined, for when A. C. Gillard,
lumber yard superintendent, saw the
fire it had enveloped the entire office.
By the time he had reached fire.
box the flames had reached across and
taken hold of the store of Murray Sill
verman, Third Avenue and Twenty-sev-
enth Street. They made short work of
this structure and two families living
on the upper floors of the building had
just time to get out and that was all.
The fire also spread in another direc-
tion to the great heaps Of timber back
of the office.
Lumber Yard Ab1aze
By the time the first firemen arrived
the whole lumber yard was ablaze.
Streamers of flame were shooting fifty
feet in the air and the wind was fan
ming them to greater efforts.
Second, third and fourth alarms we're
turned in quickly, the last bringing
Smoky Joe" Martin, acting chief. The
iiremen on arrival saw that the dwell
ings on the west side of Third Avenue
between Twenty-seventh and Twenty
eighth Street were doomed, and hurried
the residents out of them.
They went quickly, the fire running
from one end of the row to the other
as rapidly as man could walk. The
flames also took hold of the factory of
the Bayside Sash and Door Company
and the additional lumber piles stacked
about it.
Only the most desperate efforts of
the firemen checked the flames there.
All of the engines in the district were
pumping tons of water on the blaze,
and only just managing to check it at
that. Eight of the eleven persons who
were bandaged or otherwise doctored
by ambulance surgeons were firemen.
The Third Avenue and Hamilton
Avenue trolley lines were tied up from
the time the fire started until the
ruins cooled off sufficiently to be
cleared from the streets. Long after
the blaze had ceased to advance piles
Of timber in the yards blazed and
cracked. Even after they had sub
sided, firemen worked until late last
night wetting down the ruins.