Salt Lake Tribune | 1915-02-06 | Page 14 | One Man May Have Met Death in Mine

1EHIYH IT DEATH II MI Also Believed That Black Hawk Blaze Was of Incendiary In-cendiary Origin. Additional light shed upon the fire in the property of the Black Hawk Coal company at Black Hawk, in Carbon Car-bon county, which broke out early last Sunday morning, indicates that one man, at least, perished in the mine. Officials of the company, who have made a complete investigation of the tire, aided by experts, also have reached the conclusion that the fire was of incendiary in-cendiary origin. As the result of this conclusion, every effort wiJl be made to apprehend the guilty person, or persons. per-sons. Whether or not the man who is supposed to have perished in the mine was connected with the firing of the mine, if it was set on fire purposely, is a matter of conjecture. The belief that the fire was of in- , eendiary origin is strengthened by many j facts. There had been no work done ! in tho nunc since Saturday evening j and, in addition, tho mine had been thoroughly wet down, in fact, it is said that in no mine in Utah have greater precautions been taken to prevent pre-vent accidents by fire or otherwise. At the same time, the officials are at a completo loss for an explanation as to why any person or persons should wish to perpetrate such an act. It was announced yesterday that if tho fire has practically- burned itself out, as is believed, the damage to the company will be slight. The Black Hawk mine, one of the best properties of the United States Smelting, Smelt-ing, Refining and 'Alining company, is situated about 1000 feet above the town of Black Hawk and is reached by a 5700-foot 5700-foot tramway. The fire was noticed at 4 o'clock last Sunday morning by the night boss. Preceding the observance of the fire a man was seen coming along; the drift from the direction of the point where the fire started. When he ascertained as-certained that he had been seen, he turned back and entered the mine. He diil not come out, so far as known, and is believed to have perished. . The fire, was first seen at a point 750 feet in the drift. There is a door at this point to cut off the air, and as soon as the blaze was located the ! door and drift were closed as securely i as possible, in order to cut off the dratt. Later there was a slight explosion, ex-plosion, caused, presumably, by oxygen eas. but little damage was done. Following Fol-lowing the explosion, the mine was more securely closed than before, and advices ad-vices received vesterday afternoon were to the effect that the "temperature was rapidlv going down. In view of this fact, "it is believed that the fire is practically out, anil the officials expect ex-pect to reopen the mine and resume work within a week. For some time past 250 men have been emploved in the Black Hawk property, prop-erty, and the daily output has been approximately 1200 tons.