Page 44 By Gregory Reynolds They didn’ t believe a fre could start in an under ground gold mine; not the miners, not the foremen and the shift bosses and not the superintendents and not the mine manager . That was the conclusion of a commis - sion of inquiry into the deaths of 39 miners. The fre in the Hollinger Gold Mine in T immins, then the lar gest gold mine in the British Empire, started about 9 a.m. Friday , Feb. 10, 1928 in a pile of rubbish that had been dumped in stope No. 55A, on the 550-foot level, east of No. 12 crosscut north. The rubbish was on top of the back flling, the apex of which was about 50 feet below the trestle from which the waste rock had been dumped into the stope. The rubbish consisted of sawdust, paraffn paper , fuse ends, lids, and Probably odd boxes from the under - ground thaw-house, situated on the same level in No. 1 1 crosscut. The rubbish was dry and presented a surface fully 12 feet wide and over 100 feet long spread over the cone of waste rock in the stope. The depth may have been anything up to 45 feet. A duplicate of the pile of dry rubbish was seen on Feb. 15 in No. 1 stope at the end of M2 crosscut on the same level. The origin of the fre is unknown but is thought to have been from the igni - tion of the dry and very infammable material by something thrown from the level on top of the pile. Combustion was evidently very rapid in the frst few minutes and later in - complete due to the lack of a supply of oxygen in the closed stope. This led to the generation of lar ge quantities of carbon monoxide, which, with the smoke and other gases, spread rapidly through the drifts and crosscuts on that level and through stopes and raises to the levels above and below . The course of the gases was north for 90 feet in No. 12 crosscut to vein No.85A, where they spread east and west to parallel crosscuts. These are at intervals of 300 feet and up a raise on vein No. 85A to the 425- foot level in the main haulage way , as well as north and south in the crosscut itself. So far as known, smoke was frst de - tected in No. 13 crosscut on the 550- foot level, about fve minutes past nine, by A. V aillancourt, the cagetend - er in No. 1 1 shaft. There were 921 men under ground that day of the mine’ s total workforce of 2,495. Thirty-nine were not to go home. V illaincourt notifed foreman God - frey Johnson on the 200-foot level and brought him to the 550-foot level. There it was impossible to go down No. 13 crosscut farther than the drift on vein No. 85A, a distance of about 100 feet, on account of the density of the smoke and gas. About this time foreman Geor ge Pond met smoke coming from the south in No. 13 crosscut on the 425-foot level at a point 50 to 100 feet north of No. 1 1 shaft. He could not go over 50 feet south of the shaft in the crosscut on account of the smoke. He then got the cagetend - er , who said the smoke was coming out of the 300- foot level, to take him to the 550-foot level. Johnson and another man got on the cage and went to the 675-foot level, where they met Alfred Prout, the un - der ground mechanical foreman. Pond went on the cage to the 800-foot level and then to the surface to report, while Johnson and Prout went down No.13 and M4 crosscuts, which were both cle ar to the central shaft, and to the 550 foot level, where they met the smoke at No. 9 crosscut. Prout remained to get hose to fght the fre, while Johnson went to main shaft and up to the surface and notifed C. G. W illiams, the general superinten - dent, at about 9:15 a.m. Other witnesses fxed the time of these events from fve to 1 0 minutes later . Steps were then taken to get the men out of the mine. While Pond was reporting the fre, the 39 men died because many believed a fr e couldn’t start in an udergr ound gold mine “The Porcupine Camp” 100 Y ears of Mining Page 42 Cont’d on pg. 44