Bio: Ziegler, Alvin Shop Fire (1955)

Contact: Dolores Mohr Kenyon

Email: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 
 

Surnames: Ziegler 
 

----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI.) April 7, 1955 
 

Fire at Alvin Ziegler residence (1955) 
 

Smoke rolled from Shop up through all portions of the residence -  
 

The Alvin Ziegler family, 311 W. 19^th Street Neillsville, is still trying to reckon what happened to it in last week’s fire.  The fire in the shop quite thoroughly accounted for the shop and the equipment in it, but that was not all.  The shop was attached to the house, and the smoke rolled from the shop up into and through the house.  This smoke damage was so extensive that the Zieglers were finding the effects of it whenever they later opened drawers, even in the most remote parts of the house.  
 

One of the causes of this extreme damage was that the shop portion had been insulated with sawdust.  The sawdust burned with heavy smoke and held the fire like punk.  When the firemen figured they had the fire licked, it presently broke out again in the sawdust.  They fought it for an hour.  
 

The damage has not yet been adjusted, but an estimate is that the loss will run to something in the order of $4,000 to $5,000.  The property was insured, probably enough to cover the loss. 
 

The best theory available to account for the blaze ascribes it to a spark struck when a heavy piece of iron equipment was moved on the concrete floor; upon the floor had been spilled a quantity of gasoline, which came from a can, used by the son Gary when he was cleaning the parts of his motorcycle. This gasoline had partially evaporated, when Gary, with help, undertook to move the equipment upon the concrete floor.  The scarping of the iron upon the floor is thought to have struck a spark, and the spark touched off the gas fumes.