- The explosion has happened at the Emerald Isle station house. Four men are dead. Other volunteers are in the hospital with severe burns.
- We're told that an alarm was rung at 10:03, sending the men to hitch up the steam engine. When they exited the station house, men were waiting with guns and shot them. The building then burned and the steam boiler exploded.
- Father learns the next day what happened. In the paper the suspect is listed as an unidentified Negro male, who demanded to know where the Chief was.
- Father and Mother know it was Coalhouse. Father decides that the next day he'll go to tell the police what they know, including the fact that they have Coalhouse's bastard baby.
- Letters arrive at the offices of the local newspapers from Coalhouse. In the letters he demands the Chief be handed over to him. Otherwise, he promises to keep burning down firehouses and killing firemen.
- Father goes to City Hall to do what he can.