RIVER OF FLAMING OIL.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 85, 19 April 1901, Page 2

RIVER OF FLAMING OIL.

SWEEPS DOWN UPON A LITTLE VILLAGE. A FLOOD OF BLAZING OIL. [By Telegraph.] (Per Mail Steamer at Auckland.) On the morning of March 24 a river of flaming oil swept down upon the little village of Glen Garden, N.J., while its inhabitants were asleep, and reduced eleven buildings, stores, and residences to ashes. The conflagration was extraordinary in character and origin. The village is in a valley along tho line of the Jersey Central railroad. An immense freight train was coming cast. It was composed of a string of coal cars, and eighteen tank cars.

High above tho village the tracks of the railroad run alongside of the mountain. They descend as they approach the village, but oven at the station are considerably above the main street, which runs up to a depot at a steep incline a few. miles west of the village. While coming down the incline around the mountain the train parted. The engineer on the forward engine pulled open the throttle and tried to race away from the second section, which was increasing its speed every second. He managed to keep clear of the racing cars until ho got opposite the depot at Glen Garden, when the second section smashed into the first. The first section, composed of coal cars, was going at a high rate of speed, aad none of its cars were jolted off the track. The forward car, one of the oil tanks of the runaway section, was hurled sideways across the tracks, and the oil tank cars behind were piled up on top of it in every way.

The first crash caused the oil in one of the tanks to explode and ignite, and the terrific heat caused the other cars to explode.

The incliue running from tho depot down to the main street served as a sluice for the burning oil, and it poured into the chief thoroughfare of the village, setting fire to everything it touched. Houses, fences, trees, shrubbery, and barns were reduced to ashes in an incredibly short space of time. The villagers, awakened by tho flames, rushed from the ofi-coming Rood of blazing oil, carrying children in their amis. . Some risked their lives to free horses, cows and pigs in outbuildings, but other unfortunate animals could not be reached in time, and were burned. Building after building, all of them as in a frame, took fire as the oil reached them, and within half-an-hour an area of 400 feet square was a mass of flame from the wrecked cars. Tho oil also flowed down the incline of the railroad track, making a long line of fire that destroyed tics, and bent and twisted the tracks.