Avondale Mine Fire Plymouth, PA
September 6, 1869
A wooden breaker built over the shaft opening of the Avondale Mine in the Wyoming Valley, one mile below Plymouth, Pennsylvania, caught fire on the morning of Monday, September 6, 1869. The fire was caused by sparks from a ventilating furnace. The shaft under the burning breaker was the only exit from the mine, and it soon became a roaring inferno. The men working in the mine at the time became trapped. A bucket brigade was formed from a large water tank on the hill to the fire until the first fire apparatus arrived from Kingston. The engine was supplied with water by buckets until a trough was made from the water tank to provide a constant supply. Good Will Engine No. 1 from Wilkes-Barre arrived next and a steam fire engine Nay Aug arrived from Scranton about one o'clock. The Nay Aug was supplied by the Good Will engine at first, but later set up suction from a stream below the railroad, and sent a powerful volume of water into the shaft, which was covered with a mass of burning timbers. About the middle of the afternoon, the two streams from the Kingston and Scranton engines had about extinguished the flames. Scranton's stream was then moved to a side tunnel that led to the shaft, and poured water into the shaft from there until the fire was extinguished. During this time, the Good Will engine was keeping a constant stream on a huge mass of burning coal that had been in the chutes between the headhouse and railroad. Around 5 p.m., preparations were being made to enter the mine to search for survivors. The crowd at the entrance was hampering the efforts and policemen tried unsuccessfully to force them back. A stream of water from a fire engine soon drove them away. Teams were sent into the mine to clear the path for rescue efforts. Mine gases hampered efforts of rescuers and two rescuers were overcome died. After their death, no further attempts were made to enter the mine until the following day when ventilation could be set up. All attempts on Tuesday were still complicated by mine gases and it wasn't until Wednesday that the bodies of the miners were found. One-hundred-eight minders died from suffocation during the fire and two rescuers died later while attempting to reach them. |