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Show - . ' . .-,vV $150,000 Fire Costs One Life, 20,000 Gals of Government Alcohol The $150,000 fire which com- ; pU'tely demolished the Springvilie Commercial Alcohol plant, on South Main Street at 11:10 a. m. j Tuesday cost he life of one of the i employes, Lynn Knight, who died ! at a local hospital six hours later j from burns sustained in an attempt at-tempt to escape from the burning ! building. : The fire began in the third stor yof the plant when a tank ! of alcohol boiled over onto an I i electric switch causing an explosion ex-plosion according to a report by workmen. Still another report was that the fire resulted from an electric motor setting fumes afire. It may always be a mystery just how the fire began. Also how Mr. Knight managed to get out of the flaming building ! after evidently being dazed by the explosion is a problem to fellow ' workmen. When the blast occured j both Superintendent William Fly-gare Fly-gare and Mr. Knight started from j the room. Mr. B'lygare thought j Knight was directly behind him I until he reached the outer door. I He turned to go back in but ! at this point a huge tank on ! the top of the building exploded and the flames forced him back. It was several minutes later that Mr. Knight emerged from the building, his clothing a mass of flames. Dispite his injuries Mr. Knight never lost consciousness as workers hurridly applied first aid and rushed him to the hospital. hos-pital. Shortly after the blast and explosion ex-plosion on the third floor a huge storage tank on he fourh floor of the building exploded throwing flames high into the air. Following Follow-ing this explosion, flames broke out in all Darts of the building which was almost entirely of brick construction. One explosion after another followed as the alcohol drums were reached by the flames. About 400 large 55 gallon "drums of alcohol in the storage room, south of te plant, exploded shooting- streams of alcohol nearly a 100 feet into the air. It is estimated that approximately approxi-mately 20.000 gallons of distilled alcohol was lost in the fire. The building was constructed about four yeas ago at a cost of approximately ap-proximately $85,000. Whether the loss is covered by insurance is not known. Besides Mr. Knight and Mr. Flygare, Myron Stout, plant chemist was in the room at the time of the explosion. Mr. Stout, however, was near the outside door and escaped uninjured. Mr. Flygare miraculously escaped with minor burns to his hands, legs and clothing. A similar fire occured at the plant last September, When Mr. Flygare was severly burned. The damage at this time was confined to about $150, it being possible ! to apply chemicals to the flames before a major explosion occured. Efforts of the Springvilie fire department to save the building were greatly hindered when water conditions proved inadequate and the firemen had to resort to pumping water from a nearby ditch. " j Calls were sent to the Provo ! and Spanish Fork departments both of which responded and assisted as-sisted the local firemen. ! A continous flow of water over the sugar factory saved the building, build-ing, which is located but a few feet from the alcohol plant. The four-story structure is practically wrecked with but part . of the brick walls and fire waip-i waip-i ed equipment standing. i I i |