Fire Damp and Twenty-Three Dead at Blue Canyon

Whatcom, April 9.—The Blue Canyon mine, where the explosion yesterday occurred, killing twenty-three men, is about fourteen miles from here, near the upper end of Lake Whatcom. Three shifts were employed, about sixty men in all. David Jones, the mine superintendent, was killed. He had been in the company’s employ over three years and had fourteen years’ experience as a coal miner.

On January 10 Inspector David Edmunds reported that the ventilation of the new mine was “fair,” but that fire damp was giving off freely. Some accumulations had been found in the rooms, and several men had been slightly burned by igniting the gas. He warned the mine foreman not to keep men at work where the air current was too weak to carry off the gas. The roof was friable and required constant care.

After the explosion the surviving miners were reluctant to talk, but what they said indicated an opinion that the mine was deficient in ventilation. David Edmunds left for Blue Canyon to attend the investigation; J. D. James, inspector from Pierce county, also went. The dead were horribly mutilated, some burned beyond human semblance. A well-known coal man said: “A man in a mine is as much a prisoner as a rat in a trap, and there is little hope of escape if anything serious goes wrong.”