100 years ago in The Saratogian
Sunday, March 3, 1918. “There were times when it seemed that no human effort could prevent one of the most disastrous conflagrations in the history of the city,” The Saratogian reports after firefighters win a twelve-hour battle with a furniture warehouse fire and 40 m.p.h. winds on Broadway.
“At one time there was a veritable rain of fire over the district lying northeast of Caroline street and Broadway,” a reporter writes, “One spectator remarked that it resembled a snow squall of blazing flakes, the billowing masses of dense black smoke forming the clouds.”
The fire breaks out just after midnight in William H. Lane’s warehouse in Long Alley. “While the origin of the fire in unknown it is probable that it might have come from spontaneous combustion,” the reporter notes, “It is also possible that the blaze might have been started by rats gnawing matches.”
The warehouse consists of two four-story brick buildings. The structure collapses approximately twenty minutes after firefighters arrive, but no one is injured because fire chief E. J. Shadwick, fearing a backdraft, ordered his men away from the front of the building.
The squall of sparks ignites the Gates Building at 453 Broadway and another structure two doors away, but elsewhere the blazing flakes are doused when they land on rooftop snowbanks.
“At this time Broadway was black with smoke, and nothing could be seen except the blazing firebrands, blown in terrifying quantities for blocks, and the great sheets of flame shooting high into the air, sometimes sweeping in great tongues to the north and then, as the gale shifted, darting out for many feet in an opposite direction.”
People living next to the warehouse experience narrow escapes. Charles Williams, his wife and child sleep through the initial noise and confusion, but are finally roused by William and Henry Steiglitz banging on their door with clubs. The family gets out the door moments before a warehouse wall crashes into their bedroom.
On the opposite side of the warehouse, W. J. Galligan’s blacksmith shop is crushed by the building collapse, but Galligan expects to get back to work tomorrow morning.
Firefighters make their stand at 449 Broadway. In the back of Richard Mellefent’s saloon is a long wooden structure that is “a constant menace, for had the flames once gained any headway in it nothing could have stopped their spread to Broadway.” The structure is saturated with thousands of gallons of water to stop the fire in its tracks.
Total damages, including four horses burned to death in Lane’s stable, are estimated at $75,000, equivalent to more than $1,300,000 in 2018 money.
— Kevin Gilbert