To rapidly eat its way north and northeastward. Around the flanks swept area tonight with its streets littered with broken wires, splinters from acres of dynamited homes, and all the odds and ends of furniture and clothing that gathered in an indescribable mass from hundreds of homes. United States soldiers stood guard. The men were composed of Georgia guardsmen and members of the officers' reserve training camp at Fort McPherson. Colonel Noyes, with headquarters in an automobile repair shop near the burned district, had mapped out the burned area early in the evening, and with methodical precision placed his companies to guard various sections as fast as they were rushed from Fort McPherson. Strict orders were issued that nothing be removed from streets vacant lots and yards. Night Chief of Police Jett and Colonel Noyes agreed that to allow anything to be moved would invite looting. There had been little of that late tonight. One man was taken to the police station charged with stealing a piano he had found on the sidewalk, that according to Night Chief Jett, was the only known case of looting. For Mocks on either side of the actual burned district, no civilian could enter except on a pass signed by the Mayor, police officials or Colonel Noyes.

Mayor Candler made a tour of the burned area tonight. He issued a statement saying the fire was accidental in origin.  I am positive," he said, "that there is no chance of its having been incendiary. It started from a small fire and was swept along in the teeth of a mist that blew almost with the force of a gale. I knew at. 