A Fire Trap in the Making
Carelessness with ashes and exploding lamps threaten to consume a downtown business block.
On Sunday some timber in the rear of Shearer's barber shop caught fire from live coals that were thrown out with the ashes, but prompt work extinguished the flames. On Tuesday a lamp exploded in the Guillaud House, and on the following evening another lamp played a similar caper in Appel's saloon. That block has had many narrow escapes and too much precaution cannot be taken, for when once a fire gets a good headway, nothing will stop it before the block's boundaries are reached.
“That block has had many narrow escapes and too much precaution cannot be taken.”
Fire safety was a constant obsession for early Yakima, especially given the density of wood-frame construction and the recent memory of the devastating Great Seattle Fire of 1889.
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