In the early evening hours of February 13, 1958, the fire department responded to a spectacular warehouse fire on the corner of West 12th Street and Irwin Drive. The temperature in the city that day was 14 degrees, making the firefighters’ efforts to put out the fire rather difficult. The warehouse itself valued at a million dollars had in its storage some $7,000,000 worth of television sets, along with drums of gasoline, and chemicals, all stored together near an area that had considerable electrical wiring. All of the city’s fire equipment and firefighters responded to the roaring inferno. The city had twelve firefighters on the scene. Two of them suffered injuries at the fire, one firemen slipped on the icy surface while fighting the fire and was admitted to Veterans Hospital; the other, was sent reeling from the percussion of exploding drums, but was not seriously hurt. The fire raged on for several hours, with periodical explosions caused by the drums of gasoline and chemicals that fed the fire. A trucking firm, which rented space on the first floor of the warehouse, evacuated 10 of its employees while firefighters fought to contained the fire, preventing it from spreading to the nearby Delaware housing project that was only 300 feet away.
Shortly after the M. V. Irwin Company warehouse fire, it was noticed that there was so many fires consuming warehouses in 1958, that a special City-County-State meeting was held in Erie at the Offices of Police Chief, Edward Williams, on March 18, 1958, where officials decided that the danger of a
firebug operating in Erie was real. The decision came on the heels of a $100,000 blaze in a warehouse at the Hammermill Paper Company, the fifth of seven warehouse fires for that year. Police believed the so-called
fire bug was also responsible for setting the fire at the M.V. Irwin Company warehouse. The Salvation Army and Quirk warehouses were also set ablaze that year. The Hammermill fire was the third two-alarm fire in in a five day period. The hoses burst open at the Hammermill fire from the wear of overuse as firefighters battled the blaze.
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| Firemen fighting the Irwin Warehouse fire. |
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| Fire Department at the scene of the Irwin Warehouse fire. |
