A Lamp Explodes and Firemen Are Trapped in a Third Avenue Blaze

An oil lamp exploded in the Pacific Picture Frame and Moulding Manufacturing Company's store, at 1908 Third street, last night, and in the fire which followed J. Brown, part owner of the store, was severely burned, and about $1,200 worth of property was destroyed. After the blaze had been once apparently quelled, flames broke out again with terrible fierceness, and several firemen who were in the structure and cut off from all escape were only rescued by several of their brethren from being roasted alive after a desperate fight with the flames by means of Babcock fire extinguishers.

The concern was owned by D. Krulewich & Co., of which firm J. Brown is a member. Last night at about 10 o'clock, while Mr. Brown was getting out an order of picture frames, a coal oil hanging lamp exploded, and almost immediately the whole room was an angry wall of fire. The burning oil, dropping from the lamp to the floor, spread and the flames followed. A quantity of shellac ignited, and almost before Mr. Brown knew it the fire had cut off his escape. He ran through the flames and succeeded in reaching the street, but not until his mustache had been burned off and his face and hands painfully blistered.

Officer John Corbett saw the flames bursting out from the front of the store and ran for box 24, corner of Pike and Third streets, but becoming winded he turned in the alarm from an auxiliary box. The department was promptly on the ground and chemical engine No. 1 began fighting the flames. The store is located on the ground floor of the Silver State hotel building, and the three upper stories of the block were filled with lodgers, many of whom had retired. They tumbled out, some in sleeping costume, and for a moment there was pandemonium. Ida Mahle, a Black woman who conducted a restaurant next to the picture-frame store, secured the assistance of men in the crowd which had gathered and her four or five children were taken from the building, after which willing hands carried her household furniture into the street.

Inside of twenty minutes after the department arrived the flames were practically under control, and seven or eight firemen went into the store. Suddenly the oil and shellac in the center of the store again ignited, and instantly there was a wall of fire which imprisoned them. Several firemen from the street, armed with Babcock extinguishers, drove the flames back and fought their way to where the imprisoned men were now almost suffocated by the smoke and heat.

The store was almost completely gutted, and the loss of D. Krulewich & Co. will reach $800. The firm carried $500 insurance in companies represented by C. Van Wyck. The building, which is owned by Eastern parties represented here by Mr. Van Wyck, was damaged in the sum of $300. Ida Smith suffered a smoke loss of $100.