Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1908 — WHEN A RIVER CAUGHT FIRE [ARTICLE]

WHEN A RIVER CAUGHT FIRE

Six Men Badly Injured and Eight Families Homeless the Result of a Peculiar Blaze. Pittsburg. Aug. 14.—Six men were painfully injured by being burned or cut and bruised while fighting the flames, and a warehouse and five dwellings destroyed, rendering eight famlies homeless, by a pecular fire at Glenfield, a small station along the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago railroad just west of this city. While ■workmen were connecting pipes of the Standard Oil company between the Sewickley valley and the refinery, at Coraopolis, one of the pipes sprung a leak and a large quantity of oil flowed Into a small stream running through the town. The oil on the water was ignited, presumably by a locomotive, and almost Instantly a stream of flames was flowing through the town. The buildings burned were near the stream and for a time it was feared that most of the town would be burned, as the only water with which to fight the fire was in the creek under seething flames.