No. 1 



Popular Science Monthly 



239 Fourth Ave., New York 



January, 1916 



Vol.88 . $1.50 



Annually 



A Fire that Burned Four Months 



By A. G. Fasbinder 



DURING a violent thunder storm a 

 bolt of lightning struck the oil- 

 soaked ground near the Potrero del 

 Llano No. 4 oil well near Tampico, 

 Mexico, the greatest oil well in the world. 

 For more than four months from that 

 date, August fourteenth, 1914, the re- 

 sulting conflagration resisted all efforts 

 to subdue it. The flames, covering an 

 area of more than a city block, swept 

 over the mouth of the great well, but 

 thanks to the concrete cap covering the 

 orifice, the main body of oil did not 

 ignite. 



Upon the first outbreak of the 



flames, it was thought that the main 

 well was doomed, as well as a great lake 

 of oil containing nearly two million 

 barrels, which was situated nearby. 

 Twenty-five hundred men were sum- 

 moned to the work of fighting the 

 flames, and apparatus which had been 

 successfully used at other fires of the 

 same nature was brought to the spot. 

 Tiiis great force of workmen labored 

 ceaselessly day and night until the fire 

 was conquered, four months later. 



The first precaution against the 

 spread of the flames was the erection 

 of a retaininsr wall of sand and dirt 



The fire mounted hundreds of feet into the air, and at night the huge red canopy over the sky 

 drew thousands of spectators to the scene 



