14

Green St. The fire gained along the avenue.
It rolled higher and higher. In the houses across from
it, curtains were torn down, papers thrown out, and
men with wet blankets stood on the roofs and at the windows
in the heat that must have been awful. Two streams
of water, pumped in relays from the Bay at Fort
Mason kept the houses and the men from burning.
It was close exciting work for an hour - with no spare
time for any of us. Then a west wind sprang up, and
as on a signal, smoke and flames appeared in the
empty houses from Van Ness to Russian Hill. Then
we understood what the Marines had been doing. It
was heroic - stupendous - and we took it as a matter
of course then. They fired 15 blocks of houses at once
to kill the other advancing fire. Can you imagine a
solid flame covering that area - and a frame house
wilting before flame appeared in it- just heat?

About 4:30 the danger was past, and I started from
270- sending the two dispatches from Divisidero St.