Edmond Molyneux

The Radford-Wright blaze on Main Street killed seven, including two firemen, and injured a dozens more.

The Radford-Wright Company was a window, door and sash manufacturer that had just relocated to Main Street, north of the Higgins Avenue subway. (Between the present day Yellow Warehouse and International Harvester / Vineyard Church building.)

A fire began around 10 p.m. in a lean-to annex at the rear of the building. An employee working late at the neighbouring Stuart Machinery (Yellow Warehouse) building noticed smoke, ran to a nearby fire call box and also notified a police officer he saw on the street. His actions likely saved the entire block from being destroyed.

Firemen from nearby Fire Hall No. 3 on Maple Street, (now the Winnipeg Fire Fighters Museum), had just arrived on-scene and began to spray the rear annex when an explosion "that shook the earth for blocks around” occurred. It blew open the massive cargo doors sending flames and shrapnel into the faces of the firemen. Then, the top portion of the rear wall collapsed to the ground pinning five of them under two meters of rubble.

Around front of the building, the explosion sent debris and live power and streetcar lines crashing down onto passers-by and onlookers. The neighbourhood was plunged into darkness.

A general alarm was immediately called in and firemen from most of the city's fire halls and every on-duty ambulance were summoned to the scene.

Rescuers dug through the rubble at the rear of the building to get at the trapped firemen. Charles McPherson was crushed to death but Edmond Molyneux was barely alive. They were rushed to St. Boniface hospital where Molyneux regained consciousness just long enough to witness the last rites being given to his colleague. He then died.

Ironically, the two men responded to a hay barn fire earlier that evening and both had to be pulled from the structure unconscious from smoke inhalation.