Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1905-03-15
FULL / |. DETAILS OF !.
TENEMENT HOUSE Fire
INADEQUATE FIRE PROTECTION
AND cLoGeED ESCAPES, THE
CAUSE OF DEATH.
THE HERoIsM OF THE FlREMEN
AND POLICE FORCE SAVES
B MANY FROM FLAMES.

New York, March 15.-At least a
score of persons were burned to death,
several were so badly hurt that they
may die and forty others received
slighter hurts in a fire that practically
destroyed a five-story tenement house
in Allen street early in the day. The
fire had gained great Roadway before
It. became known to most of the ten
ants and many Of them were cut off
before they could make an attempt to
save themselves. Thrilling rescues
and daring leaps for life marked the
fire. Scores were carried from the
blazing building: Firemen climbed
the walls ON their scaling ladders,
braved the flames and reached the i'm
perilled tenants. = .@.
HI Crowded fire escapes in the rear of
the, tenement house were largely re-
sponsible for SO many deaths and in.
juries among it's population, which ap'
preached 200 souls. Another cause of
the terrible loss Of life was negligence
in. failing to keep the, skylight door
free and clear 1t was not only fas-
tened tight, but also frozen.
/. The scenes about the building after
the fire was over and when the search
for the dead was begun were heart
rending. Nothing SO pitiful of such
proportions has been seen in New York
since the Slocum disaster, when a
thousand persons, nearly all of them
women and children, lost their lives.
Explosion Cause Of the Fire.
The fire started in the. basement
occupied by Isaac Davis, his wife and
three children, and was caused by the
explosion of kerosene lamp. Davis
and his wife attempted to put out the
fire but failed. A policeman who
heard the cry of alarm rushed to the
scene and every effort was made to
arouse the sleeping persons in the
house. y F Fri
In the meantime the flames had
spread with startling rapidity and
when the persons who had been asleep
on the upper floors awoke they found
themselves confronted by wall of
flames on nearly every side. y. 5.s;
Scenes of the. widest description
followed. Panic stricken people, fight
ing for their lives, rushed to the fire
escapes only to find them Uttered with
rubbish of all descriptions and almost
impossible. Down through this mar
row assageway followed streams Of
people. On some escapes the rubbish
was so closely packed that it became
impossible to pass certain points and
men, women and children stood liter
ally roasting to death as the flames
reared through windows around them.
One of the escapes, which ended
near the roof of shed about twenty
feet above the ground, had been
manned by Policeman John J. Dwan,
who had run plank across to the win
dow Of an adjoining building. Nearly
q dozen. persons had been. carried
across THIS harrow bridge by the po-
lceman when the flames began to
sweep around the lower end of the tire
escape. Rushing into the fire the po-
Nceman seized little child and start
ed ON the last return trip across to
the place Of safety. He had made only
halt the distance when the plank,
burned more than half through, broke
where 1t rested on the fire escape and
the rescuer, and rescued fell to the
stone paved yard twenty feet below.
The man atr,Ick fairly on his hack