Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-01-11
FOUR F|REMEN KILLED
Fifty More Are Injured In 6,000,-
 900 Blaze In New York.
FIRE GUN" USED IN RESCUE
Fifty Thousand Spectators See Thrill ing Spectacle of Five Men on Roof Saved by Life Line Shot to Them. Parker Building Destroyed.

New York, Jan. 11.-Four firemen are missing and believed to be dead and fifty were injured in the destruc- tion by flames of the supposedly fire proof thirteen story structure known as the Parker building, at Nineteenth street and Fourth avenue.
 The blaze was attended by spectacu- lar incidents, was watched by 50,000 spectators and was one of the worst the fire department has fought ill years.
 So great was the number of injured men that the Florence hotel, at Eight eenth street and Fourth avenue, was turned into a temporary hospital, while surgeons from Bellevue St. Yin. cents, Roosevelt and Flower hospitals dressed their wounds.
 Tine Brunswick kBalke-Collender com pany occupied the lower floor of the building, and various firms occupied the upper floors. The loss on struc- ture and contents was almost total The police estimate is S6,000,000. For the first time i'll many years the fire gun was used to rescue persons imperiled by the flames. On the roof of the big building. which, with the hotel. occupied the entire side of the street, five men, whose names are not known to the firemen, were standing amid swirl of smoke and flame.
 They waved their arms at times and at other times placed their hands against their eyes to keep the smoke from binding them. Far below in the streets. where great crowds had gath cred, the men were seen, while every minute the flames, which had swept from the fifth floor upward, neared them.
 Fire Commissioner I.antry whirled through the police lines just at this time, and after hurried consultation with the battalion chiefs a squad of men was sent to the roof of the hotel, which is six stories high and stands only twelve feet from what once was a splendid office and factory building. Planting their cannon behind a cop ing. the fremen shrieked through trum- pets to the five on the Parker building top. Their voices were drowned by the thudding of the engines in the street, the clamor of the crowds and the roaring of the flames, which were swept by high wind twenty feet into Fourth avenue.
 But the five understood. Suddenly above the din the crowd heard the boom of the gun, and rope. with weight al the end. shot into the air and made an arc over the burning structure. The half stined men tied the end to a chimney, and the firemen took care of the other end.
 Hand over hand in the glare of the sre and going painfully through the gushes of smoke that rushed upon them when the wind shifted the men descended on the life line.
 As they reached within foot of the coping of the hotel firemen grasped them. and they were hurried below for medical attention. A block away the thrilling spectacle could be witnessed so intense was the light cast by the 1 fire. which reddened the sky for more than mile
 Twoscore firemen had miraculous es- caIes from death when the floors on the fifth story fell. carrying debris downward to the cellar and upon the heads Of men fighting the flames on the second story and in the basement. The survivors reported that the fol- lowing. who had not been accounted i fer. were killed: Thomas Phillips. Thomas O'CoRnor and John Lynch of engine company No. = and John Fal- lon of No 2 patrol company.