The Night Ballard Almost Burned

At 2 o’clock yesterday morning a fire started in W. L. Forrester’s candy and confectionery store on Ballard Avenue, in the business center of Ballard, and before it was put out buildings and merchandise worth $11,775 had been destroyed.

It is not known how the fire started, unless from the explosion of a kerosene lamp which Mr. Forrester left burning when he closed his store. The flames quickly spread to the adjacent buildings belonging to J. Smith and the Puget Sound Pacific Meat Company of Seattle, which, with most of their contents, were burned.

The fire department attached a hose to the Stimson Mill Company’s pump, and in a few minutes a small stream of water was obtained, but this in about five minutes gave out entirely. By this time four buildings on the opposite side of the street, and one on the south, were on fire at the same time, and not a drop of water was in sight. For ten minutes it looked as if the whole business portion of the town must burn, and an effort was made to telephone the Seattle department for assistance, but the wires had been disabled by the heat.

Chojard’s fine brick building, Mrs. E. Adair’s store, William Bull’s building, occupied by Thomas Houston, and S. Z. Watney’s store were all burning, and seemed doomed to destruction, and the crowd stood hopelessly looking on, for if these buildings burned ten or fifteen others in range of the fire must burn also.

When the water from Stimson’s mill gave out, the manager of that mill gave orders to have the hose carried to the pumps of the Seattle Cedar Lumber Company’s mills, and, the tide being just high enough, a good stream of water was secured just in time to save the town. The water from Stimson’s pump gave out through the separation of a six-inch pipe, all the threads of which, except two, were worn off. The new fire bell, which had been hung in the steeple the previous night, rang out the fire for the first time.