The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-02-02
EXPLOSION Of
NATURAL GAS
FIVE Persons Burned to Death
and Five Injured in Rooming
House at Kansas City.
CUT OFF BY FIERCE FLAMES
BUILDING WAS OLD AND HAD NO
FIRE ESCAPES.

Kansas City, Mo-, Feb. Five per
sons were burned TO death and five
others were injured in fire in three
story roomnig house at 1116 Wyandotte
street, near the business center, this
morning.
The Dead.
Mrs. Jennie Bert, aged %, Harrison
Vile. Mo-, waitress.
Mabel Porter, aged IS, waitress.
Nina Graves, aged is, waitress.
Peter Rooney, aged "a. cook.
Charles Johnson, aged 2s cook.
The injured received slight burns and
cuts and none is in a dangerous con-
dltion. All of the dead, except Mrs.
Bert, lived in Kansas City.
Natural Gas Explosion.
The fire started from an explosion of
natural gas in the basement at o'clock
this morning. The flames and dense
smoke spread quickly throughout the
building and before an alarm could be
given all means of escape by the ordi-
nary exits had been shut off. The five
persons who lost their lives were asleep
on the third floor, and all save Mrs
Bert were burned to death in their
rooms. Evidently they had been suf-
located and none apparently had even
made an attempt to escape.
Before the fireman arrived, the build
ing was mass of flames and the rooms
on the upper floors could not be entered.
Mabel Porter and Nina Graves, two of
the dead. occupied a room together,
The injured slept on the lower floors
and in the basement. Most OF these es-
capped without aid, fighting their way
through flames and smoke. The fire.
nEl 9TH M.
burning building.
Tried to Save Others.
Mrs Bert lost her life in trying 10
arouse the inmates. The dense smoke
pouring up the stairway soon filled the
Railways and entered the rooms. Mrs.
Bert's room, on the third floor. was
close to the landing, and it was one of
the first TO be entered by the smoke.
She was awakened and hurrying down
the hallway on that floor. attempted
TO awaken the sleeping roomers. The
smoke soon drove her to the second
floor, where she tried TO repeat her ef-
fort at giving an alarm.
The smoke and flames, however, now
crowded her so closely that she was
compelled TO desist and sought escape
by the stairway. AT the top of the sec
ond floor landing she stumbled and,
railing headlong down the stairway,
landed in the thickest of the flames.
AT the bottom her charred remains were
later found by the firemen. Tue body
was almost unTecogniZable.
Bodies Terribly Burned.
There were twenty-five persons in the
building when the fire broke out. Most
of the rOomers worked at night as wait
resses and cooks at nearby hotels and
restaurants, who had only retired a
short time previous and they were deep
in slumber. This fact doubtless ac-
counts for the inability of Mrs. Bert
to awaken them. The bodies of the
four other victims were found in their
beds. Each had been terribly burned,
and the limbs dropped from one of them
as the remains were later carried from
the house.
The alarm of fire was turned In by
Colonel Willis Wood, a capitalist, for
merly of ST. Joseph, Mo. The building
was one of the Oldest in the city. 1t
was a veritable firetrap, and when the
firemen arrived il was then already
doomed. 1t was not supplied with fire
escapes and the only means of escape
was by way Of the stairway up through
which the flames and smoke poured.