FIRE ON THE PAPANUI.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 9304, 18 November 1901, Page 4

FIRE ON THE PAPANUI.

- 4 A PASSENGER'S NARRATIVE. LONDON, Oct. 4. One of the passengers had been kind enough to give me the following narrative : — "About 4 p.m. on the Saturday after leaving Teneriffe we noticed puffs of steamy smoke curling from the ventilators forward, and knew that there was a fir* on board somewhere. There was no panic,' and few of the passengers realised how serious the danger was. The first care of the officers was to open up the 'trunks' where the ammonia used for refrigeration was stored m iron cylinders, for if the fire reached these an explosion would have ensued. A good deal of smoke came out of these 'trunks,' but a sailor went down m a mask something like a diver's helmet, and before long all the cylinders were removed from danger, and the passengers assured that there was now no chance of explosion, and no cause for alarm. , There was a dull, heavy smell all through the saloon, but otherwise- we suffered no inconvenience and felt no anxiety, as we knew we should reach Vigo on Sunday morning. ''In vigo the Spanish authorities looked askance at us, and moored the boat well away from the wharf, and from a German man-of-war lyjng m the harbor. All Sunday afternoon was spent" m trying to locate the fire, and the passengers stayed on board to see the fun, which soon became a grim tragedy. Officers, engineers, and sailors, some m helmets and others unprotected, went down the trunks and into the hold, feeling and tapping the bulkheads and walls to discover the seat of the trouble. The second refrigerator, with a helmet on to protect himself from the carbonic acid fumes given off by the: charcoal, went down to the second deck, while the bos uns mate, Andrews, stood on the first deck to keep the air tube from getting jammed. The refrigerator stopped down so long that Andrews, fearing something had gone wrong, went to look for him. He was overcome by the fumes, and failed to reach the second refrigerator, who came up without passing or seeing his companion. By-and-bye a cry was raised, 'Where's the bos uns mate?' and several officers and men went .down into the hold to rescue him. The^second refrigerator tied a rope to his prostrate body, and we were hauling it up, when the rope fouled something and "broke. "An A.B. went down without any helmet, and was brought up insensible and apparently dead. He had stopped breathing, but after a time, by artificial respiration, the doctors brought him round. Then Miller mad« a plucky attempt and went below into the poisonous atmosphere with a rope round his waist, but he, too, m a few minutes was dragged out insensible, and took some time to come round. At last an A.8., who had been a London Fire Brigade man, came to the rescue with more method than his predecessors. He got a plan of the hold from the second refrigerator, put ov a helmet, and m a trice had lbced ropes round Andrews' legs, and we hauled them out together. This fire brigade man, whose name I did not learn, was quite the man of the hour. Poor Andrews had been m the midst of the suffocating Jumes for over half an hour, and^ was past all hope when he was brought to the surface. There was no sign of life, and although artificial respiration and every known device was tried by the doctors, the body kept getting colder, until they had finally to acknowledge that no more could be done. The doctors from the German ship very courteously come and offered their services, but further efforts were unavailing. Meanwhile the coal was being shifted out of the buukers, for there the fire had originated. The officers and engineers, especially the. chief engineer, were working like niggers. It was found that the bulkhead between the coal and the- refrigerating chamber m front of it was nearly red-hot, and a number of square holes were cut m this and the refrigerating chamber flooded with water. Here the fumes were very bad, and the chief engineer was brought up insensible early on Monday morning. On Sunday evening the hatches were opened for a little while, and dense volumes of steam poured out, and fans were set to work to fan out the fames. On Monday most of us went ashore, and that evening a fine centrifugal pump was set to work pumping water into the hold, with a flow of nearly 250 tons an hour. After a while the

boat began to get a big list, and it was thought wiser practically to beach hi'i-, so she was taken about nine miles up the harbor, where there was only about a foot of water and a sandy bottom uudemeath her, and the hold pumped full up to the orlop deck. liy the time this was done there was a tremendous list, and we were all aslant. The next-excitement was that the water ran to one side of the boilers, and the fire played on empty tubes on the other. About Thursday night the fire was completely extinguished. Meanwhile, the coal had been shifted m the bunkers, and the crew had been busy getting the carcases out and putting them into barges alongside. When the water was pumped off they were replaced m the hold. By this time they were pretty soft, and we surmised that if they could be kept m any sort of condition they would be sold to coap works. But ,1 hear that after we left Plymouth they were too bad even for that, and that the stench be'carne so foul that the whale lot had to be slung overboard. By working all Friday night the engineers reduced the list with ballast tanks,- and got the en-gine-room ready, and on Saturday night ■we steamed out of Vigo, and reached Plymouth without further mishap than delay due to the heavy fogs.