AN EARLY FIRE

[Welland Telegraph, 21 February 1890]

Mr. Elias Burgar’s Residence Destroyed

LOSSES AND INSURANCE

             About half past seven o’clock yesterday morning the alarm of fire was sounded by the town bell and Messrs. Beatty & Sons’ steam whistle, and a very few minutes both hose reels were at the scene of conflagration at Mr. Elias Burger’s residence, West Main street. When the firemen reached the spot the fire had spread behind the plaster and under the rafters, and was creating such dense volumes of smoke that an entry to the interior was an improbability. The flames had evidently started from the kitchen, but the immediate cause is unknown and probably always will be. Mr. Burgar had started a fire about seven o’clock and went out to do some chores, but before he had been ten minutes absent from the house he was summoned by his wife rapping violently on her room window; looking out he saw smoke coming from the roof of the kitchen, and not knowing the position of the flames feared to open the door. He got in at the window of Mrs. Burgar’s room and quieted her fears as much as possible, though she was very nervous, and had been confined to her bed by sickness for some months. By this time some of the neighbors arrived and the sick woman was carried as carefully as possible into Mr. Shanahan’s residence, but the nervous shock left her very weak. Miss Crow who lived in the house occupied a room upstairs, and before she could get out she was nearly suffocated by the smoke and was rescued with some difficulty. The smoke was so dense that it was for a time impossible for the firemen to enter and the hose was turned on the outside with very little effect, as the absence of ladders and appliances to break a hole in the walls prevented their entry. It was probably half an hour before the smoke was sufficiently subdued to allow a successful effort at saving the contents, and by that time much was destroyed and badly damaged. People worked with a will, however, using every possible care in removing the furniture as soon as they could get at it. A large amount of clothing and bedding was completely destroyed, and Mr. Burgar’s secretary, in which he kept his papers, is included in the loss.

             The building is badly wrecked; the kitchen roof is completely destroyed and the walls and partitions are badly damaged. The house was erected by Mr. J.W. Jackson some 10 or 12 years ago, at a cost of between $2500 and $3000. Mr. Burgar purchased it some 4 years ago, and carried an insurance of $1600 in the mercantile and $400 in the Queens on contents. He can as yet hardly form an estimate of his loss, but it will not be less than $1200.

SPARKS 

Mr. Burgar will rebuild the house as soon as the insurance is adjusted.

The water pressure was adequate to the demand, but was not as good as usual.

The firemen were furnished with hot tea and coffee by some of the residents nearby.

The need of a thoroughly organized hook and ladder company was well demonstrated.

Mr. C.J. Page was a good mark for the branchman and he made a bull’s eye at the first squirt.

The fire bell roused a good many easy going citizens who had “just turned over for another nap”

Had a regular fire alarm system been in use the alarm might have been sounded 10 minutes earlier.

Fire: 20 February 1890