One Large Fire Follows Another in Jersey City

One Large Fire Follows Another in Jersey City

Blaze in Large Saltpetre Manufacturing Plant Spreads and Involves Nearly Two City Blocks—Second Fire in the Erie Railroad Piers

JERSEY CITY, N. J., was visited within three days with two fires on its water front, each of which necessitated calling out the entire fire-fighting forces of the city. The first of these fires occurred in what is known as the Gammontown section at 9 A. M. on November 14, originating in the Battelle & Renwick’s saltpetre plant and destroyed nearly two blocks near the river front, including a nine-story warehouse of the American Sugar Refining Company, the Hoppe Paper Box Company's plant and the Richards Chemical Works. The second fire which started shortly after noon two days later on the Erie Railroad pier No. 5 burned two of the railroad piers and fifteen lighters and tugs. A remarkable fact is that in both of these fires no one was killed although several persons suffered from burns and injuries received from falling debris. The second fire started approximately twenty blocks from the site of the first.