HugeBlaze Hits tuffffi

: Beaver l-umber Co.

. Fire, fanned by Memorial weekend .winds up to 35 m.p.h., has completely leveled a large two story office building and a good portion of the mill of Beaver r Lumber Company at 750 Thorton Street in San Leandro.

' An estimated crowd of 10,000 onlookers jammed the area to get a glimpse of the huge blaze which sent flames shooting between I00 and 150 feet into the air while every piece of fire equipment in San Leandro fought to keep the fire from spreading to the adjacent California Packing Corpora. tion. :, Intense heat from the blaze destroved :, telephone, telegraph and power lines on both ; sides of Thorton Street and Southern Pacific was forced to re-route several of its trains on alternate tracks during the height of the May 30 inferno.

The fire reduced the two story office building to rubble along with all files and ofrce equipment. The mill, which adjoined the office, was also virtually destroyed along with a 100 foot sawdust hopper which spewed tons of sawdust into the inferno and narrowly missed several firefighters as they fought to contain the blaze. lll BTAVER LUMBER fire, virtually all records were destroyed except those reclaimed from the cdnpany safe. View (top lef0 from rear of mill. Sawdust hop per and steel mill building were to left of damaged shed. Typical ol the mill damage kight) was this forlorn Mattison 226 planer. Chuck Williams (foot on step) and yard man viewing the remains of a brandnew Hyster. Truck had been parked in the mill over the Memorial Weekend shutdown to keep it out of the weather. Charred papers and debris (lower right) are all that's left of the office. Chuck Williams' office was dead ahead by that chaned telephone pofe.

Inventory loss, however, was light with most of Beaver Lumber's five million board feet inventory escaping damage aloqg with several dry sheds further back in the yard.

President Fran Winkel advised that the principals of Beaver Lumber have not yet decided to rebuild or to relocate the big retail lumber and millwork ,concern.

MI. ftITIL NAITI:

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