The Deutschland in the signal of distress said that a fire aboard was becoming "dangerous. Help is necessary urgently."
There were 501 passengers and a crew of 369 on board the modern German liner.
Officials of the Hamburg-American Line were confident that the fire would not prove disastrous because of an efficient crew well-versed in fire-fighting methods.
They said that the Deutschland was equipped with the most modern of apparatus for fighting fire. They also said that the liner possessed fireproof bulkheads and thus were confident of the crew's ability in controlling the fire before it got well out of control and endangered the lives of the passengers.—United Press.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.