The block of warehouses on fire towered up six stories high, and occupied half of the northern side of the dock next to East Smithfield. They formed a huge pile about 440 feet long by about 140 feet deep, the import part of the dock lying on the south side with its ships. The block was built in a number of divisions or bays, each measuring about 90 by 50 feet, and separated by strong walls, which rose from basement to roof. Happily, the communication between these divisions was afforded by double folding-doors of iron, a space of about three feet existing between the double doors; they were believed to be fireproof; and with the one exception they were closed. But, like the Tooley Street buildings, these warehouses were chiefly stored with very combustible materials. Tallow was here, which played such a bad part in 1861; spirits were here also, palm oil, tons of dyewood, flax, jute, and cotton. Labourers had been at work for some hours when the alarm was given, and men were busy on every floor. They were receiving the goods from the quays, and wheeling them along through the building, when the fire was discovered. And now Captain Shaw, the chief who succeeded Braidwood as the head of the fire-brigade, dashed up with a steamer from Watling Street, which was then the headquarters of the brigade. He had received the alarm at about twenty minutes to twelve o'clock, and had telegraphed to all subsidiary stations. Captain Shaw, who afterwards became Sir Eyre Massey Shaw, K.C.B., was born the same year as the steam fire-engine was first used--_viz._, in 1830. He was the son of Mr. B. R Shaw, of Monkstown, County Cork, and in due time entered the army. Retiring in 1860, he became chief of the Belfast Borough Forces, including police and fire-brigade, being appointed in the next year the chief of the London Fire-Brigade. [Illustration: THE FIRST COMPLETE FLOATING STEAM FIRE-ENGINE, 1855.] Not only did he telegraph for land steam fire-engines to the conflagration; but a large steam-float, usually kept off Southwark Bridge, was also quickly under way. Soon he had eight land steamers and from seventy to eighty men on the spot, while he himself directed in person. Mr. Collett, one of the Dock Company's secretaries, worked hard, and often at great peril; Mr. Graves and Mr. Stephens, also officials of the company, were busily engaged in directing removal of valuable materials; while about seventy men employed by Cubitt & Co. in rebuilding a warehouse, destroyed by fire in the previous October, rendered assistance.