People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1897 — BAPTISM OF FIRE. [ARTICLE]

BAPTISM OF FIRE.

Rensselaer has finally received what has been so long awaited, namely her first serious fire, an incident that feooner or later is bound to become a part the history of every town before her people awake to the necessity cf good fire protection. And let us remark right here .that waterworks are not all that is wanted; buildings should be made safer from fire; frdntas well as rear windows should be supplied with heavy iron shutters; so cal led fire walls should be actually what they ai*e called; new buildings should be made to conform to specifications calculated to be the most effective barrier against fire from within and from without. That we have not had serious loss before is attributable to fortunate eircumstances in discovering the fires quickly apd to the individual merit of our firemen. What, will now be done in the line of improving the fire department is to be seen. At a few minutes to seven o’clock Tuesday morning A. F- Long’s drug store was discovered to be on fire by the night clerk, Pete Brenner, who had not yet risen from his bed in the room just over the rear of the store. He was nearly suffocated but managed to escape from the building in scant attire, falling down the stajrs and crawling on his hands and knees to the rear. The alarm was at once sounded and the little chemical engine pulled around to the front of the store. At this time the room was full of heavy smoke, but E. P. Honan rushed in with the hofee and reached the furnace register, whereOhe lay on the floor receiving sufficent pure air to enable him to live while he turned the stream on. the fire which had burned through the floor. He was fast getting the flames under control, the fire being wholly in the basement adjacent to the furnance, when a pipe burst on the engine and the stream ceased to flow. Mr. Honan waited and waited for the fluid to start, feeling confident that if it would only run for five minutes he could save the building, and above all save the stocks and tools of his friends who had their all invested there. Seconds seemed like hours to him but he waited in vain for the precious fluid, and finally as the flames rolled up through the floor to the ceiling above, he left the register and groped his way out through the deadly fumes, falling unconscious as he reached the door. He quickly recovered however and, true fire fighter that he is, stayed with the boys until their noble work was done. It was at once seen that the adjoining building occupied by Porter & Yeoman was doomed, and the efforts of the firemen were directed to saveing the McCoy bank block, and buildings

adjoining on the south of it. Men also prepared to protect Ellis’ large opera house block, west of Long’s drug store. The wind was favorable to the opera house and it was never in serious danger. But the bank block was only saved by the most heroic work. It was afire in fifty places between the roof and ceiling, but the fire lads went through the roof in a dozen places and the bucket brigade did praiseworthy work in the stifling smoke and bitter cold. It was extremely perilous to stand on the ice covered ladders and keep the line of slopping buckets moving up to the top of the high building, but the boys had the courage of veterans and for two hours they fought against heavy odds, as the fire crept around to the south of the bank and Phillips Barber shop and Ferguson & Wilson’s office.went down. By this time the two store i were down and the bank bldck was under control.

There has been some very unjust criticism, mostly by persons who stood in the street andshivered while those now blamed were risking their lives on the burning buildings. It has been said that Phillips’ barber shop should have been saved. Those who make the assertion do not understand the circumstances or they would think differently. It should be remembered that nothing but a lath and plaster partition seperated it from the burned store and it was doomed from the beginning. It should be remembered also that McCoy’s block was demanding attention at the same time, and the force was necessarily divided. It took courage to go on top of that building with fiie and smoke rolling over it and half its rafters burning under the tin covering of the roof. Nor was the fact that it was 18 degrees below zero any encouragement to hang to an icy ladder thirty feet from the pavement. The boys worked like tigers and they saved thousand of dollars worth of property. They worked systematically, were cool and were successful without other appliances than their lad ders, axes § hoo s, and buckets. Less determined work would have lost the entire row of wooden building throught to the street south, and possibly Ralph Fendig’s house on the opposite corner. The Pilot office is in that row and we appreciate the work that was done for our benefit. If anyone person is deserving of special mention for service rendered, it is Jack Montgomery, whose experience in climbing telephone poles, made him quite at home in the air, but the entire fire company are entitled to place on the honor roll.