The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1903-11-03

ANTONIO V1llmO, FRANCES V1llmO, SdTdl
O'Toole, Antonio D. Angelo, Pasquale
Marotto. Frank Mastrenio, Mattio
v%endrano, Jose Mustrim or Mustiolo,
Pietro Donyski, Joseph Zorowitch,
Frank Delmonio, Antonio Berolich,
Antonio Ucilini, Giuseppe Cappelli,
and three unidentified Italian laborers.
The only person injured, as far as
can be learned, was Mary Jane Quinn.
~forty-seven years old, who was badly
burned and severely bruised by leap
ing from the second floor.
In several apartments sin the tene-
ment Halloween parties were in prog
S and the guests at these added
greatly to the number of persons in
the house and made the crush and
jam to escape more than 1t would Or
dinarily have been.
Exits damned With Dead and Dying.
Although plentifully provided with
fire escapes, front and rear, escape
here was cut off a few minutes after
the fire started by the bodies of the
dead becoming wedged in the OPEN
tngs leading to the ladders.
The fire had been burning for some
minutes before it al discovered. It
started in the basement, and, rushing
upward, attacked the stairway leading
to the apartments. In asshort space
of time the flames had SO enveloped
the stairway that egress from the
building by it was impossible. The
house from the third to the first floor
was entirely destroyed.
AT the windows, front and rear,
bodies of men and women were
damned, showing that a desperate
struggle to get free had resulted in
the complete choking of these exits
to the fire escapes and had been the
cause Of a number of the inmates be-
Ing suffocated. Lying on a bed along
side a window at the rear of the
fourth floor the firemen found the
bodies of five men. Each had clutch
ed the one next to him in an %endeavor
to push him awav in order to get to
the fire escape outside. The features
of the men were distorted, some wit
rage, others with agony, and in two
Instances the men had gripped each
other so hard that blood had been
drawn and had run over their hands.
On the third floor were found the
bodies of Maculeta Vingiguerro and
her baby. The mother had crawled to
the front window and had succeeded
in grasping the sill when she was suf-
located. In her arms lay the body Of
her child.
Firemen to the Rescue.
On the third floor in an apartment
where a Halloween party was being
held. John O'Toole, one of the occu-
pants, started to go to the street. He
was met by a volume of smoke as he
opened the door. He ran to the fire
escape, followed by all those in the
flat, with the exception of his mother,
whose charred body vas found later
lying at the entrance to the apartment.
O'Toole and the others escaped.
When the firemen reached the
scene there was a mass of fame
bursting through the middle of the
roof, while the air was filled with
heartrending creams of the women
and the curses of the men. Many dar-
Ing rescues yer made by the firemen,
who at times had to use violence in
their attempts to disentangle the mass
OF writing human beings struggling
In vain efforts to reach safety from the
crowded fire escapes.
One fireman climbed to the fourth
floor. where a window was filled with
a mass of people, damned in and
fighting to get out. He struck the
heads of all the men he could see with
his fist, and they fell back. He then
handed down to the firemen on lad
aNers below three women and a baby.
Another fireman performed a similar
feat and rescued two girls from the
Fourth floor.
Ijfe nets played a prominent part
Nh the work Of rescue. The fremen
dropped men and women, dead and
alive. from one floor to another and
finally the men standing on ladders
on the first floor let them fall into the
nets held by policemen and fremen in
the street.