Events of The Fire
On the afternoon of June 6, 1889, John E. Back, a worker in Victor Clairmont's cabinet-making shop near Front Street and Madison Avenue, was heating glue over a gasoline fire. Sometime around 2:30 pm, the glue boiled over and caught fire. The fire soon spread to the wood chips and turpentine covering the floor. Back attempted to douse the fire with water which only served to spread the fire further. The fire department arrived by 2:45, but by that time the area was so smokey that the source of the fire could not be determined. At first it was assumed to have begun in the paint shop above Clairmont's woodworking shop and the Seattle newspaper erroneously ran this story the next day.
Read more about this topic: Great Seattle Fire
Famous quotes containing the words events and/or fire:
“There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“You are no surer, no,
Than is the coal of fire upon the ice,
Or hailstone in the sun.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)