On Friday, April 12, 2002, between 3 o'clock and 3:30 o'clock p.m., one of the axle bearings on a rail car of a Union Pacific coal train heading from Denver, Colorado, to Chicago, Illinois overheated. The incident was noticed about twelve miles east of Sharon Springs, Kansas. The crew stopped the train and walked about half a mile back to the 57th car to investigate the source of the smoke. They discovered that the axle bearing had overheated and the car in question was stopped over Turkey Creek with its hot wheel on a wooden bridge built with creosote ties and trusses. By then, the bridge was also burning. A passer-by called the fire department and Sharon Springs and Winona Fire Departments responded. The train crew unhooked the cars to save the remainder of the train. By the time the fire department arrived, the bridge was fully engulfed. When the bridge collapsed, the loaded rail cars spilled their coal and the coal dust ignited with a flash. Luckily no one was hurt. The crowd of spectators that had gathered had by then been moved back to a safe distance. The loss caused by the fire was $2,094,390. That's $12,000 for the lost coal, $246,390 for the lost rail cars, $36,000 to clear the debris, and $1.8 million to replace the bridge.
A destructive incendiary fire started in the piling yard of Brown, Early & Co.'s saw mill on Sunday, April 12, 1874. The fire burned an area of forty acres between White, Lentz & White, and Reading, Fischer & Reading, and consumed about 30,000,000 feet of seasoned white pine lumber, the saw mill of Filbert, Otto, and Company, the Empire planing mill, and a large number of dwellings tenanted by employees of the mills. The loss was about $600,000.
1815
Mount Tambora Eruption - Sumbawa Island, Indonesia
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