AN excellent example of the fire resisting qualities of an ordinary wooden fire wall was furnished in the fire which destroyed the 

 old plants of the Northwestern Box Company and the West Side Lumber & Shingle Company at Portland, Oregon. The wall is 

 shown above. This wall was all that stood between the fire and the plant of the Portland Lumber Company, one of the largest 

 and most modern mills in the Northwest. While the flames made a clean sweep of the Northwestern and West Side mills the Portland 

 Lumber Company's property was not even scorched. 



THE wall is 35 feet high, constructed of 2x6 Douglas Fir planks laid flat on top of one another, and with buttresses on the side 

 toward the Portland plant, to give stability to the wall. It was constructed about 10 years ago. Recently part of it was torn 

 down to make room for a power plant, evidence of which can be seen in pile driver, derrick and steel framing in the foreground. 



THE fire raged for three or four hours and, on account of the thoroughly seasoned and oily condition of the timbers of the old 

 mill, was of such intensity that it could not be approached within several hundred feet. Despite this, work on the opposite 

 side of the wall continued without interruption. An examination afterwards revealed that the maximum depth of the charring 

 over the surface of the wall exposed to the fire was less than one inch. Below we see the destruction from the fire, and the other 

 side of the fire wall. 



