FIREDAMP.—A MINE IN FLAMES.
No premature explosion of blasts, crushing in of timbers, caving of
earth and rock—no accident of any kind is so much feared or is more
terrible than a great fire in a large mine. It is a hell, and often a
hell that contains living, moving, breathing, and suffering human
beings—not the ethereal and intangible souls of men. It is a region of
fire and flame, from which the modes of egress are few and perilous. A
great fire on the surface of the earth is a grand and fearful spectacle,
but a great fire hundreds of feet beneath the surface of the earth is
terrible—terrible beyond measure or the power of words to express, when
we know that far down underneath the ground which lies so calmly on all
sides, giving forth no sound, are scores of human beings pursued by
flames and gases, scorched and panting, fleeing into all manner of nooks
and corners, there to meet their death.
A large mine in which are employed from five hundred to one thousand men
is of itself a considerable village, though it be a village far below
the light of day. In it are more timbers, lumber, and other combustible
matter than is found in all the houses of a town of two thousand
inhabitants—it contains millions on millions of square feet of timber—in
it whole forests have found a tomb.
Besides being built up to a height of from one thousand to one thousand
five hundred or two thousand feet, with cribs composed of massive
timbers, each crib filling a space five by six feet in size, there are
floors of heavy planks, six feet apart, one above another, all the
distance from bottom to top. In many places, too, the main timbers are
doubled again and so filled with blocks and wedges and braces that all
is a solid mass of wood. In numberless places there are stairs leading
from floor to floor, and then there are scores of chutes, built of
timber and lined with planks, with vertical winzes, constructed in the
same way, all of which, with the chutes, lead up through the floors from
level to level; also numerous drifts and cross-cuts supported by timbers
and walled in with lagging (split pine-stuff like staves, but longer),
all of which serve as flues to conduct and spread the heat and flames
throughout the mine.
The mines of the Comstock have not escaped fires. They have not been
many, but they have been fearful as experiences, and have cost many
lives.
The first and most terrible of these fires was that which broke out in
the Yellow-Jacket mine, Gold Hill, about 7 o’clock on the morning of
Wednesday, April 7, 1869, in which forty-five men lost their lives.
The fire started at the 800-foot level (that is 800 feet below the
surface) at a point two hundred feet south of the main shaft, near the
line of the Kentuck mine. It was first discovered at 7 o’clock in the
morning, though it had no doubt been burning longer, as some of the
miners asserted that they detected the smell of smoke as early as 3
o’clock A. M. The night shift (relay) left at 4 A. M. and the morning
shift began work at 7 A. M., and it was supposed that the fire
originated from a candle left sticking against a timber by men on the
night shift. From 4 o’clock till 7 o’clock the only men in the mine were
the car-men, but before the danger had been discovered many of the day
shift had been lowered into the mines—Yellow-Jacket, Crown Point, and
Kentuck.
The first thing done on discovering the fire was to try to get the men
up out of the mines. The alarm of fire was sounded, and the fire
companies of Gold Hill and Virginia City at once turned out.
Pending the arrival of the firemen with their apparatus, those about the
several mines were doing all in their power to rescue the men who were
left underground. At first the smoke was so dense that no one dared
venture into either of the shafts, but about 9 o’clock in the morning it
seemed to draw away from the Kentuck shaft, and men descended on the
cage and recovered two dead bodies.
At the Crown Point mine, when the cage was being hoisted for the last
time, some of the men on it were so far suffocated as to fall back and
were crushed to death between the sides of the cage and the timbers of
the shaft.
Toward noon some of the firemen working at the Yellow-Jacket mine
ventured down the shaft to the 800-foot level and recovered three or
four bodies of asphyxiated miners.
About the same time, at the Crown Point mine, a cage was sent down with
a lighted lantern upon it. It was lowered to the 1000-foot level, and
with the lantern was sent the following dispatch, written on a large
piece of pasteboard:
“We are fast subduing the fire. It is death to attempt to come up from
where you are. We shall get you out soon. The gas in the shaft is
terrible, and produces sure and speedy death. Write a word to us and
send it upon the cage, and let us know where you are.”
No answer came back—all below were dead.
As soon as it was known that the mines were on fire, and that a large
number of miners were imprisoned below, by the dense volumes of smoke
and suffocating gases that poured up through the several shafts, the
most intense excitement prevailed, both in Gold Hill and Virginia City.
The wives, children, and relatives of the lost flocked to the several
hoisting works, approaching as near to the mouths of the shafts as they
were allowed to come, and, standing there on all sides, their grief and
lamentations caused tears to course down the cheeks of the most
stout-hearted. “Lost! lost! lost!” was the despairing cry constantly
uttered by many of the women whose husbands were below.
The Rev. Father Manogue, a pioneer of the country, and several other
Catholic clergymen of Virginia City and Gold Hill, moved about among the
people and did all that could be done to comfort and quiet the weeping
women and children, but even the reverend fathers could find little to
say in mitigation of the woes of such an occasion. Many of the poor
women, with weeping children clinging about them, stood round the
shafts, convulsively clasping and wringing their hands, and rocking
their bodies to and fro in excess of misery, yet uttering scarcely a
word or a sob—they at first seemed utterly stupefied and overwhelmed by
the suddenness and awfulness of the calamity. Turn where they might
there was no comfort for them.
At the Yellow-Jacket mine the smoke and gases drew away to the
southward, men descended the shaft, and all but one man known to be
below at that point were brought up dead.
As the cage containing the dead bodies rose up at the mouth of the shaft
there was heard a general wail from the women, who could with difficulty
be restrained from climbing over the ropes stretched to keep back the
crowd. “Oh! God,! who is it this time?” Some one among them would be
heard to say. The dead bodies would then be lifted from the cage, and
then borne in the arms of stout miners and firemen outside of the circle
of ropes.
As the men passed out with the dead, the women would crowd forward in an
agony of fear and suspense to see the faces. “Oh! Patrick!” one would be
heard to shriek, when the bystanders would be obliged to seize her and
lead her away.
At the Kentuck and Crown Point shafts there steadily arose thick,
stifling columns of smoke and pungent gases, generated by the burning
pine-wood and heated ores below. No person who stood at the mouth of
either of these shafts could entertain the slightest hope that any one
of those in the mines could be alive; yet wives and relatives would
still hope against everything. In every direction almost superhuman
exertions were made to extinguish the fire.
By closing up the shafts and pouring down water, it was thought that the
fire might have been extinguished, but to have done so would have been
equivalent to saying that all below were dead—and would, indeed, have
been death to any that might have been living—besides, the order to
close the shafts would have drawn from all present at all interested in
the fate of those below such a wail as no one would have cared to hear.
No one could enter the Crown Point or Kentuck shafts, but that of the
Yellow-Jacket being cooler, the firemen began to work their way down it,
carrying with them their hose and bravely battling with the fire. A long
string of hose was attached to a hydrant and carried down to the
800-foot level, where the fight began. It was such work as few firemen
in the United States have ever undertaken, and such as none but firemen
in a mining country could have done. The miners and firemen battled side
by side. The firemen would advance as far as possible, extinguishing the
burning timbers, and when a cave of earth and rock occurred, or the
blackened and weakened timbers seemed about to give way, the miners
would go to the front and make all secure.
The walls of the drifts were so heated that it was very frequently found
necessary to fall back, even after the burning timbers had been
extinguished, and play a stream on the rock in order to cool it down. In
places boiling hot water stood, to the depth of two or three inches, on
the floors of the drifts. Steam, fumes of sulphur, and gases from the
heated ore and minerals rendered the air so bad that it became necessary
to lead in an air-pipe from the main blower above, to enable the men to
continue work. When caves occurred, flames and poisonous gases were
driven forward upon the men, singeing and partially suffocating them.
Their position was one of great peril. Their only means of reaching the
surface was through the shaft, and at any moment an accident might
happen that would cut them off from this; or the draught might change
and overwhelm them with stifling gases before they could ascend to the
surface.
The situation below, when the fire broke out, was fearful. The smoke and
gases came upon the men so suddenly that, although they ran at once for
the shaft, many were suffocated and sank down by the way. At the Crown
Point the men so crowded upon the cage at first (a cage holds from
twelve to sixteen men.) that it was detained nearly five minutes; the
station-tender being afraid to give the signal to hoist while so many
men were in danger of being torn to pieces. A young man who came up on
that cage told me, that as they were finally about to start, a man
crawled upon the cage, and thrusting his head in between his (the young
man’s) legs, begged to be allowed to remain there and go up. He was
permitted to keep the place, and his life was saved.
[Illustration: THE BURNING MINE.]
As this cage started up, hope left the hearts of those remaining behind.
They were heard to throw themselves into the shaft and to fall back on
the floors of the mine. Another young man told me that in rushing toward
the shaft, it occurred to him that he might fall into it—all being dark
below—when he got down on his hands and knees and crawled, feeling his
way until he knew that he was at the shaft. While lying there, three or
four men came running along from behind, and pitched headlong into it,
to their instant death. At one lowering of the cage, a man who went down
from the surface, finding that there were more persons below than could
be brought up that trip, generously got off into a drift and put on
board a young man who was so far suffocated that he was unable to stand.
The man who did this was afterwards brought up unharmed.
The firemen not only went into the burning underground regions
cheerfully, but there was strife among them to be allowed to go. To see
them in their big hats, ascending and descending the shafts, as they
relieved each other, was a novel sight. It was a new way of going to a
fire. Although a stream was kept playing at the 800-foot level of the
Yellow-Jacket all day, at 9 o’clock at night it was found that the fire
was rising, and a second stream was put on at the 700.
At 2 o’clock, on the morning of the 8th, thirteen bodies had been
recovered. Some of these were found in the sump (place in which to
collect water at the bottom of a shaft) at the 1,100-foot level where
they had fallen from stations above, others were found at the 1000-foot
level, lying in all kinds of despairing positions, just as they had sunk
down and died when overtaken by the poisonous gases.
At 1 o’clock, on the afternoon of the 8th, twenty-three bodies had been
recovered. When the fire first broke out, an explosion of gases occurred
near the Crown Point shaft, which is supposed to have killed several men
in that direction. Wherever the stifling gas swept in upon the men it
left them dead. One dead miner was found clasping a ladder with death
grip, his head hanging backwards. It was necessary to lower the body
with a rope a distance of fifty feet to the bottom of the level. On the
900-foot level of the Crown Point mine, about thirty feet from the
shaft, nine men were found in one heap. They had unjointed an air-pipe
in the hope of being able to get enough fresh air to keep them alive.
On the morning of the 10th it was evident that the fire had increased to
such an extent that no more bodies could be recovered,—that none in that
pit of fire could be alive—and at, 11 A. M., the mouths of all the
shafts were covered with planks, wet blankets, and earth. At noon, steam
from the boilers was turned into the Yellow-Jacket shaft through the
air-pipe leading from the blower (a fan revolving in a drum, used in
forcing air into the mines) down to the 800 and 900-foot levels, whence
it would go wherever it could find egress.
On the 12th, a few more bodies were found, and there was so much fire
that the mines were again closed and steam forced into them. Some of the
bodies last taken out of the mines were so decomposed, owing to the
great heat below, that in order to handle them it was necessary to roll
them up in canvas coated with tar. Several bodies were in such a
condition that the wives and relatives of the deceased were not allowed
to see their faces. They were told to remember them as they had last
seen them in life. One woman begged hard to see the face of her husband;
then to see his hair. Being shown his hair, she laid her hand on it, and
said: “Good-bye, my husband.” As she turned away, a little girl she was
leading said: “Can’t I see my papa?” when the mother fainted.
On the 14th, at 3 o’clock P. M., steam was shut off from the shafts and
all the works stopped. Five bodies still remained in the mines. Three
days later the shafts were opened and some explorations made. Spots of
fire were extinguished, where they could be reached. Almost daily they
were able to get into some one of the mines and direct streams of water
upon some parts of the fire. At this work men were frequently
asphyxiated, and then it was necessary to hasten with them to the
surface. On the 28th, another body was recovered, and on the 29th,
efforts were made to reach the bodies (four) still remaining on the
upper levels of the Kentuck; but some of the men fell down insensible
from asphyxia, and the attempt was abandoned.
Thus the miners struggled with the fire, until May 2nd, when it grew
worse. The drifts between the Yellow-Jacket and the Kentuck and Crown
Point mines were then closed, and the shafts of the latter mines were
again sealed. The fresh air thrown into the mines by the blowers was
supposed to have given the fire new life.
On May 18th, the Kentuck and the Crown Point mines were opened, and
miners descended to the lower levels of both. On the 20th May another
body was recovered in the south compartment of the Crown Point
shaft, when it was found lying on a scaffold at the 1000-foot level,
leaving three bodies not yet found. After this the fire again increased
and drove the men away from places where they had been able to work. May
24th, it was discovered that the fire was on the 800-foot levels of the
Crown Point and Kentuck mines, and the miners finally succeeded in
walling it up and confining it to this space.
As late as June 23d, men were occasionally brought to the surface in an
insensible condition, and the fire continued to burn in that portion of
the mines to which it was confined, for over a year. Nearly three years
from the time of the breaking out of the fire the rocks in the 800-foot
levels of the Crown Point and Kentuck mines were found to be red-hot.
Only fragments of the skeletons of the three missing men were ever
found. Their bodies were in those parts of the mines that were walled in
and given up to the flames.
[Illustration]