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JUNE 14, 1953 Fireman Perishes In 4-Alarm Blaze  $100,000 Damages Estimated By John Rutledge A fireman burned to death and three others barely escaped like fates in a downtown four alarm fire Saturday night that destroyed the two story Stanford Furniture Company warehouse, 316 Olive. Dead was Fire Lt. Gilbert David Crites, 37, of 1718 Berkley. He fell into the fire as the roof collapsed under him. Another fireman and a spectator were injured as the $100,000 blaze erupted into a deadly spectacle of brown smoke and billowing orange flame at 7 pm. A hundred firemen battled for more than an hour. L M Costlow, 43, of 3716 Howell, discovered the fire. A mechanic, Costlow was getting tools from Downtown Motors garage at 315 Olive. "I heard something explode and looked across the street," he said. "Some second story windows had been blown out. Smoke and flame were boiling inside like a bomb had exploded. I phoned the fire department." About the same time, Jimmie Brawn, 32, awoke in his second floor room in the Gilmore Hotel, adjoining the north side of the burning building. "My room was full of smoke and I could see fire just a few feet away," he said. Brawn routed fourteen other guests from the walkup hotel. All ran into Live oak at Olive, some clutching prized possessions. They watched clouds of flame lick over and above their quarters. But firemen confined the blaze to the Stanford Building. As firemen arrived, chiefs radioed in second, third and fourth alarms at two minute intervals. Downtown traffic froze as twenty pieces of fire equipment including three aerial ladder trucks screamed to the scene. Lieutenant Crites, one of the first to arrive, with his No. 4 truck, climbed the northeast corner of the building with three others. Armed with axes, the four intended to hack holes in the roof to release smoke, heat and gas trapped inside. None ever swung his axe. The roof collapsed with a roar, shooting a serried column of smoke and fire more than forty feet above their heads. Battalion Chief Raymond Burress said all had just swung over the top of the brick wall and dropped five feet to the flat roof. "Crites walked about twenty feet out on the roof, but the rest of us stayed near the wall," he said. "I told him to be careful. He was about to swing his axe when the whole thing fell in. I jumped over the wall and fell about a floor to the next roof below." Fireman John Lamar, 28, of 2658 Willhurt, clung to the lip of the brick wall as the roof fell away below his feet. "I would have fallen in with Crites but B F Thomas and Pete DeFord (fellow firemen on a ladder) pulled me over the top. They saved my life." Fireman Terry Eades, 29, of 2322 Hudspeth, was six feet from the life saving wall. "The roof fell without warning," he declared. "My part sagged like a big funnel |