Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1911-04-04
.l4l PERISH IN FIRE
SCORES OF EMPLOYEES DIE BY
JUMPING FROM BURNING
sHIRTWAIsT FACTORY.
OTHERS KILLED IN PANIC
Fire MarshaI's Inquiry Reveals Fact
Workroom Was Death Trap-That
Disaster Result of Cigarette smok-
ing-S6 Victims Are identified.


New York-Of the 141 employees,
mostly girls and women killed in a
fire in Triangle Shirtwaist factory at
the corner of Greene street and Wash
ington place Saturday, Sc have been
identified
Seventy of the bodies were those
OF girls and young women, the remain
ing sixteen those of men. There are
II injured In the hospitals. Scores
of others more or less seriously hurt
were taken TO their homes
The building was occupied by a
number Of factories, and at least
1,500 persons were at work when the
fro started.
The victims were either burned to
death or were crushed into lifeiess
forms on the pavements when they
leaped to escape the swift rush CT Ere
which quickly enveloped the building.
Not since the burning OF the excur-
sion steamer General Slocum, of
North Brothers island In 1904, when
Wv pei oOho pei AdS tAC NhNJ
been so excited by fire horror.
At least fifty of the victims were
killed by leaping from the windows of
the seventh lloor, and floors above.
Many persisted In the flames on up
per floors, remaining, afraid to leap
until the fire surrounded them.
Although the fire started on the
eighth floor, 1t spread eventually to
the basement and Quilted the whole
building. The blaze started in the
company, on the eighth floor. This
concern occupied the upper three
floors of the building.
Joseph Devontry, a Brooklyn auto
mobile dealer, who was passing the
building when the fire started, says
that 1t was IL minutes after the alarm
was turned in before there was a
stream of water on the blaze.
By that time there were 80 dead on
the sidewalks. The scene was sick
ening With wild shrieks the girls
leaped from the windows, and, above
the din and roar of the flames, their
bodies struck the street and sounded
like claps of thunder.
The extension ladders of the fire
men reached only to the seventh floor
The f1remen were unable to get above
that with scaling ladders because Of
the intense heat and the dense smoke
pouring from the upper windows.
Unable to reach the upper floors,
the f1remen resorted to the use of life
nets. In most instances the nets
proved to be worthless. Some Of
them broke under the pressure of a
single body. Others were torn by
two or more persons alighting In
them at the same time. One net was
lying in the street after the fire with
six bodies tangled IN 1t.
Grocery wagons and even pushcarts
were pressed into service to get the
wounded people, most Of whom we're
young girls, to drug stores and hos
pitfalls. Stores in the neighborhood
were turned into temporary morgues.
A great crowd gathered around tho
HCeuc Vi tue uIC. dClOllC6 III Tie
neighborhood were soon emptied of
their employees.
Some of the revelations brought out
by Fire Marshal Beers in his public
inquiry into the causes of the fire
show that the poor girls In that panic
rush to escape from the flames found
traps at every turn.
1t seemed that the very arrange
ment of the workrooun was a trap,
with 700 women, damned back to
back at their machines. When the
panic started, the narrow aisles be-
came blocked with chairs and the
girls were In confusion before they
even started for the doors. Then
there was a scarcity of exits, the
inward opening doors and the death
trap fire escapes"
1.-The fire. without any question,
started from a cigarette or a match
thrown into a pile of lawn clippings
light cotton stuff. said Marshal Beers.
There was no gasoline about the
place. so far as could learn and the
machinery power was furnished by
electric motors. But can prove that
cigarette smoking was no uncommon
practice among the men employed in
the factory
THE fire started at 440 o'clock.
Samuel Bernstein, the superintendent
for the Triangle company. and boy
tried to put 1t out with buckets Of
water, but fought 1t for only minute
and a half The alarm vas not
turned in for five minutes.
while Bernstein was fight.og the
FIRE, Edward Brown. the machinist,
was trying to get the girls IN line to
march TO the fire escape and to the
elevator doors. But the poor things,
in most cases, understood only Yid-
dish and did not know what he was
-