PREVENT LARGE FIRE SPREADING TO SURROUNDING FRAME STRUCTURES

PREVENT LARGE FIRE SPREADING TO SURROUNDING FRAME STRUCTURES

Large Three-Alarm Business Building Fire in Boston Threatens Residences with Wooden Shingle Roofs—Burnings of the Week

A SERIOUS hazard was contained in a three-alarm fire in Boston. Mass., on October 8. in that the structure involved was surrounded by inflammable frame dwellings, many of which were surmounted with wooden shingle roofs. The blaze was in the three-story brick building at Nos. 512-520 Dudley Street in the Roxbury section of Boston. Mass. The building was an old joisted brick structure once used as a horse car stable and more recently as a paper storehouse. The floor area was about 33,000 sq. feet. It was occupied by the Hodgkins Paper Company and the Boston Painting and Roofing Company. The floors were piled high with old telephone books, waste paper stock, and burlap. An employe of the Hodgkins Company smelled smoke shortly after 9 a. m. and upon investigating found flames coming up the rear elevator shaft from the paper loading platform. He notified the proprietor of the concern who was in the building and some time was lost trying to telephone an alarm to fire headquarters. Meanwhile a fireman off duty passing along Dudley Street saw the smoke and turned in an alarm from Box 3141, corner of Dudley and East Cottage Streets.