1927
Ocean City, N. J., Oct. 12. (United Press) - An area eight blocks square was a smoldering mass of debris today after one of the most disastrous fires in local history.
Thirty buildings were razed, causing a loss of approximately $4,000,000. Among them were three big frame hotels, shops, business houses, a garage, two motion picture theatres, many boardwalk concessionaires and the Hippodrome Pier.
Three firemen were injured severely by glass and flame, one of them perhaps fatally.
The fire started at 7 p.m. and within a few hours several frame buildings were ablaze. A shift in the wind at 11 p.m. helped check the blaze. Fireproof buildings along Asbury avenue, the main business section, also aided in checking the flames.
Fifteen minutes after the firemen began playing on the blazing structures on the 'walk' the flames had made their way down Ninth street and fired the Boardwalk Garage, adjoining the Arcade building on the Ninth street side.
With a roar that could be heard all over the resort, a huge gasoline tank exploded, sending the blazing fuel high into the air. The firemen ran for their lives, and as they did so three more tanks went up in rapid succession. The high-shooting flames and the burning embers carried to the air by the stiff breeze from the ocean landed on the tops of other buildings, and in a short time the entire Boardwalk section between Ninth and Tenth streets was a blazing mass.
No comments:
Post a Comment