Perth Amboy evening news. [volume] (Perth Amboy, N.J.) 1903-1959, 1924-11-14
Over Dozen Firemen Over
come by Fumes and
Scores Are Cut
CITY BLOCK Is SWEPT
2 Factories and 2 Rows of
Tenements Are Now
Roaring Furnace

NEW YORK, Nov. 14.-Firemen
and apparatus from, New York City
this afternoon were ordered to Jer-
sey City to assist in fighting the fire
there.
Three alarms were sounded to mo-
bilize the firemen in preparation 10
departing for Jersey City. 1Garlier
two fire boats, the John Purroy
Mitchell and the New Yorker had
gone to the assistance of the fire
forces already combating, the flames.
JERSEY CITY, Nov. 14.-Fire IN
the rear section of the Anaerican
Sugar Refinery building has burst
beyond control of the firefighters
and is forcing them to retreat. The
walls at the rear of the building are
beginning to cave and the flames
thus released are expected to carry
across the street to the main ware
house of Colgate and Company
which is filled with soap and other
highly inflammable substances.
Should the warehouse become ig-
nited 1t is predicted the entire CT :
gate plant will be destroyed. Plants
of the Vulcan Iron Works Company
and of the Manhattan Electric Sup
ply Company also are menaced.
Firemen are hampered by low
pressure.
Walls of the refinery crumpled
suddenly and fell with series of
cannon like reverbrations that mo-
mentarily drove firemen from the
scene in the belief that an explosion
had occurred.
The flames are now burning along
the ground and it is believed the
can be kept from the warehouse
across the street
The conflagration which started in
the salt petre plant of the Richard
son Chemical Company, leaped be-
yond the control of the fire forces
of two cities to the abandoned plant
of the Sugar Refinery Company, and
then encompased and destroyed sev-
eral factories and two rows of tene-
ment houses which included most
of the buildings in an entire block
bounded by Morris. Warren, Essex
and Washington streets, ragged for
four hours before firemen declared
it under control at l o'clock this af-
ternoon. Losses cunning into mil
lions of dollars but which could not
be closely estimated; Is persons SER
iously injured or burned, scores of
others cut by glass blown out over
a half mile radius by series of ex-
plosions, and 900 families made
homeless, was the toll.
Shortly after IL o'clock the south
wall of the sugar refinery, on Dud-
ley street, caved in, the huge plant
was seen to be a roaring mass of
names, and all hope of saving any
of 1t was abandoned.
A this tho T1nhnlyAva lA
partments were on the scene and in
the desperate fight. Fireboats from
New York City were called to the
Jersey City piers to prevent the con-
fiagration's spread. Several hundred
volunteer firemen were engaged in
that section battling small blazes
which caught in various buildings
and tenements from hurtling embers.
At 1920 o'clock the salt petre
plant had been destroyed and the
flames had spread to a block of three
story frame dwelling houses close by
and to one building of the Colgate
soap factory.
The call for assistance to New
York City brought the fireboats John
Purroy Mitchell and New Yorker to
the New Jersey side OF the river.
At 1880 o'clock many ambulances
were at the scene. The surgeons
were caring for the fifteen firemen
who had been overcome by the
smoke. Only one injured person
had reported for treatment-a man
with a broken leg.
Among the firemen injured and
overcome were: Captain Bush, sew
eral broken fingers and seriously
burned; Fireman Cunniss, fractured
knee: Fireman Efrrnfl. severe face
burns;, Fireman Kingston, overcome
by smoke.
Firemen rescued six year old
Polish lad from the third floor of a
Morris street tenement house where
his mother had locked him in a
room. She franticaly tried to break
through the police lines to save her
boy until the firemen went for him.
Six tons of explosive soap ma
terials stored in tunnA between the
old sugar refinery house and the
Colgate soap factory just before noon
threatened to become the source of
greater explosive disaster than the
morning had yet seen. The entire
hose force of the fireboat John p.
Mitchell deluged the roof of the tun-
mel while heavy force of fire fight
ers from Hoboken was detailed to