CANFIELD HOTEL, DUBUQUE

On June 9, 1946, fire broke out in the Canfield Hotel in Dubuque, Iowa, killing 19 people and destroying the original four-story building built in 1891; a six-story brick section added 35 years later survived.

Flames started in the hotel taproom after most guests had retired for the night.

In the 1940s, hotels were plagued by a lack of capital improvement owing to the Great Depression and shortages of building material during World War Two.

The 200-room Canfield Hotel, for example, was serviced by an open stairwell and lacked sprinklers.

A fiberboard dropped-ceiling, added to modernize the appearance of the hotel, contributed to the rapid spread of the flames, according to Encyclopedia Dubuque.

1946 was an especially deadly year for U.S. hotel fires.

Two weeks before the Canfield blaze, on June 5, 1946, a fire at the LaSalle Hotel in Chicago killed 61 people. Then on Dec. 7, 1946, a fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta killed 119 people.

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Presentation by Senior Captain Harold Cosgrove

Dubuque Fire Department at 23^rd Annual Iowa Fire School

First of all, Gentlemen, I am not an authority on fighting hotel fires, or any other kind for that matter. I just happen to be another fireman who was on duty when we pulled into a bad one

I think most every fireman dreads a call to an un-sprinkled hotel or institution at night where a life hazard exists.

The Dubuque firemen are not bragging about the Canfield fire. It was not a perfect job on our part. None of them are, and like the Monday morning quarterback, the next day we could have done better. Any time a community has a fire that takes the lives of 19 persons, and a property loss of $200,000 there isn't much to feel proud of, but comparing the Canfield to the LaSalle or the Wynecoff, ours was a small job.

Bob asked me to describe how it looked as we pulled in and what we did about it. I won't go into detail as to the construction of the building other than to say it was built in 2 sections, a brick wood joisted old part, four stories high, with lobby and tap room on the first floor, and guests rooms above, and so-called fire proof annex, six stories in height. Fire doors protected the annex floors where the corridors joined.

Due to the pending lawsuits, I will not attempt to give the cause of the fire, but it must have been a "flash" as a woman patron of the tap room died five feet from the stool on which she had been sitting. We received a simultaneous alarm at 12:39 a. m. from a street box on the corner opposite the hotel, and also telephone alarm from the hotel night clerk. Seventeen men responded to the first alarm, with 3 pumpers and an aerial truck. We smelled smoke when about 2 blocks from the hotel. As we turned the corner it was a sight we won't forget for a while. Flames were belching from the entire first floor of the old section, and had enveloped the only outside fire escape on the old section. The base of this escape terminated at the tap room entrance.

After sounding a third alarm I started to circle the building. A man was hanging at arm's length from a third floor window. He dropped with a thud. People were shouting and screaming as smoke poured from over their heads in most of the windows. I knew we had a "race with death." After ordering the officer of an engine company that was stretching in to abandon his line and get the net off the truck, we called for citizens to help man it. About ten responded. Before we could raise it shoulder high, a woman jumped from the third floor. We caught about five or six when they had the aerial ladder raised and were going up after them.

It was then that we experienced the only trouble we had with our civilian help. I ordered the net brought to the front of the building. They shouted, "Let's get these down first." I said, "There's a lot more on the other side." They came along and we caught six more there. One woman kicked off her slippers before she jumped and then turned a double somersault on the way down.

The only stream kept in operation was used to wet down the fire escape which people were trying to use and couldn't , due to the flames. One man was dying on the second floor landing off the escape, and another was trapped on the third floor. This man jumped into the net. As fast as they jumped we would dump them onto the ground and raise it for another. Sometimes we had to move the net to catch the falling body as much as five feet.

The flames were now racing through the building and as we took the net to the south side the picture was worse. A grandmother with her grandchild stood inside the third floor window, holding the child on the window sill. I begged her to push the child out and then jump. She slumped to the floor pulling the child into the room. Both died. A man and his wife were sitting on a window sill on the fourth floor with a suitcase between them. He pushed his wife off then threw the suitcase into the net, jumped onto it and broke his back. Seven net holders were injured by luggage being thrown down by victims. One man received a lacerated face by being kicked as a person rebounded after striking the net.

The most firemen helping to hold the net at any one time was five, and on account of telephone wires, it was hard to judge where to stand. We were also afraid more than one would try to come down at the same time. A woman struck her neck on the rim of the net and died. It put a bow in the iron frame. It was getting hard to see the victims by now in the upper windows, due to the smoke from below, and it was hard for them to see us.

The hardest net catches were those from the fifth and sixth floors. The impact was terrific it they failed to strike near the center. One man we caught from the sixth floor told us that the net looked as big as a silver dollar, but felt like a feather bed. I believe this was a slight exaggeration , as he received a broken leg and fractured pelvis. Most of those who jumped from above the fourth floor suffered some injuries but all seemed glad to be down regardless of bumps. They landed in al positions. Some stiff legged, on backs of necks, on hands and knees, and about every way possible.

The net rescues took about ten minutes and only one net was employed. That's all we had with us. Twenty-seven were caught, 26 lived and the woman who struck the rim died. Twenty-one persons were rescued by ladders of various lengths. This took about 40 minutes although anyone not rescued from the old section in 15 minutes died, because the roof fell in about that soon after we arrived. One man rescued by ladder died from burns. It was 15 minutes before we made any effort to extinguishment. We had to use all manpower for rescue work. Chief Kirch and Senior captain Thomas Hickson directed extinguishment operations after they arrived, using deck pipes and other major stream equipment. Nine pieces of apparatus and 57 firemen worked at the fire.

As department drillmaster, I can appreciate the grumbling of the men because they have to keep doing evolutions over and over, but repetition pays dividends because the men will do that evolution automatically when they have to on the fire scene.

As I see "Bob" has the stop watch on me. I will just say one more word: "Let's not forget," it can happen in your town.

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Dubuque, Iowa (United Press) - STANLEY E. SCHIBSKY, Minneapolis, wrote the management of the Canfield hotel two weeks ago for a reservation and asked for a second-floor room because he feared being trapped in a fire. He wrote that he had been in hotel fires before, and that he believed a room on the second floor was safer. Accordingly, he was given a second-floor room, and was occupying it when the Canfield hotel fire broke out. He died in the flames.

[Waterloo Daily Courier, Waterloo, Iowa; June 10, 1946]

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Dubuque, Iowa (United Press) - Firemen bolstered the charred walls of the Canfield hotel Monday, to resume their search for additional victims of the Sunday morning fire which killed 16 persons.

The search was delayed when four floors in the center of the hotel collapsed. The flames, starting in a closet near the cocktail lounge on the ground floor, shot upward to the floors above.

Panic-stricken guests trapped by the smoke and flames leaned out the windows and screamed as firemen set up ladders and rigged nets. Of those who leaped, however, two were killed when they missed the nets. Many escaped by ripping and knotting bedsheets into makeshift ladders.

When the first of nine fire engines that fought the blaze arrived at the hotel, firemen found guests waving pillow cases and screaming to attract their attention.

GREAT DEPRESSION, DETROIT

In 1931, members of the Detroit Fire Department served soup to the needy during the Great Depression from fire stations across the city, starting with Engine Co. 1.

DOCTOR ARCHER, NYC

Dr. Harry Archer was born to a prominent New York family. He attended Columbia University and received an M.D. degree from Bellevue Medical College in 1894. Since his childhood he loved the FDNY, not unlike many youngsters in the City. But after becoming a physician, Dr. Archer dedicated himself to New York's Bravest.

Perhaps to the disappointment of his family, rather than becoming a private physician to New York's high society, he accepted a salaried position with Aetna Life Affiliated Companies with the proviso that he could, and would, leave his office to attend greater alarm fires.

On March 7, 1907, Dr. Archer was appointed to the Department with the rank of honorary Battalion Chief and was designated a Medical Officer. Though never receiving compensation for his medical services to the FDNY, there is no doubt that this was his full-time job.

Whether by horse, bicycle, his Locomobile outfitted with bell and Maltese cross, or by "bus" - the 1914 FDNY Ambulance he designed - Dr. Archer's appearance at second and greater alarms was a matter of routine. But once at the scene, he was not satisfied with merely tending to the wounds, major or minor, of the firefighters.

On multiple occasions, Dr. Archer entered burning or collapsed buildings to treat firefighters and civilians alike. At the Equitable Building fire in 1912, he made his way into the basement vaults of the building to administer aid to trapped firemen. For this action, he received his first medal of valor.

He was cited a total of four times during his career including the Department's highest award, the James Gordon Bennett Medal, for his participation in the rescue of two workmen trapped in a building collapse at 39 to 41 Eldridge Street in Manhattan. Dr. Archer himself became trapped briefly when a second collapse shook the building as he was making his exit.

Twenty-four years later, at the age of 78, Dr. Archer was still at it, this time crawling through the rubble and debris to spend over ten hours on a freezing New Year's Eve to try to keep two firefighters, Battalion Chief William Hogan and Fireman Winfield Walsh, alive. They were trapped in the collapse of a loft building at 749 Broadway. Dr. Archer administered plasma to them, perhaps the first time this was done outside of a hospital in other than a combat setting, as well as broth through feeding tubes. Unfortunately, both men succumbed to their injuries but not until several days after their ordeal.

In 1939, Mayor LaGuardia asked him to serve as Second Deputy Commissioner which he did until 1940. To do so, he had to resign his honorary position and rank.

Dr. Archer's activities earned him the respect of his professional colleagues as well as the firefighters he treated. Perhaps the first Fire Surgeon to truly embody that title, he became nationally known for his expertise in treating toxic gas poisoning, having developed ground-breaking treatment modalities. Some times his methods were "low-tech." He was known to stock woolen Navy watch caps in his ambulance that he would make injured men wear on cold, wet nights.

Though the firefighters who benefited from Dr. Archer's intense concern and caring are of a generation long since passed, his memory lives on. In 1947, a medal was endowed in his name. It is awarded every third year to one of the three previous Bennett Medal recipients. In 1956, Commissioner Cavanaugh unveiled a plaque in Headquarters honoring Dr. Archer's sixty years of devotion and service to the members of the Department. In 1958, a fireboat was commissioned in his name.


From from findagrave.com

FIRE PREVENTION WEEK

Fire Prevention week falls in October,  marking the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire of Oct. 9, 1871.

President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the first National Fire Prevention Week on Oct. 4–10, 1925, noting fires claimed 15,000 lives across the U.S. the prior year.

"This waste results from the conditions which justify a sense of shame and horror; for the greater part of it could and ought to be prevented," Coolidge said.

"It is highly desirable that every effort be made to reform the conditions which have made possible so vast a destruction of the national wealth."

In 2015, fires caused 3,280 civilian deaths, 15,700 civilian injuries, and $14.3 billion in property damage, according to the National Fire Protection Association.

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EVERGLADES FERTILIZER, FLORIDA

On Jan. 13, 1969, fire broke out at the Everglades Fertilizer Plant in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and burned for three days, fueled by tons of toxic chemicals. Of the the 100 firefighters at the blaze, more than a quarter were diagnosed with cancer. "It was a witches` brew, and you had these guys inhaling it," said fire Lt. Stephen McInerny, quoted in 1990 by the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel.

CORAL GABLES, FLORIDA

Photo: flashbackmiami.com

Fire station sculpture at Coral Gables, Florida 

CALVIN COOLIDGE

The following tale is based on a speech by former President Gerald Ford on being Vice President of the United States.

In 1922, a general alarm fire broke out in the ballroom atop the Willard Hotel in downtown Washington, and firefighters evacuated the guests - including then Vice President Calvin Coolidge.

As the time passed, Coolidge grew tired of waiting in the street and decided to return to his hotel room.

As he headed for the stairs, a fireman demanded identification.

"I am the Vice President," Coolidge said.

The fireman asked: "Vice President of what?"

"Vice President of the United States," Coolidge said.

"Then get back here," the fireman said. "I thought you were Vice President of the hotel."

MOLASSES DISASTER, BOSTON

Aftermath

Recovery

Fire station wrecked by wave

On Jan. 15, 1919, an industrial storage tank burst, sending a wave of molasses coursing through Boston's North End at an estimated 35 miles per hour.
 
A recollection published by The Atlantic magazine said:

"The destructive flood threw people and horses about, smashed buildings, and even damaged the steel supports of an elevated railway.

"Rescuers had to wade through knee-deep molasses and sticky debris to reach survivors.

"Twenty-one people died in the disaster, another 150 were injured, and the cleanup lasted for weeks"

At its peak, the wave towered 25-feet over street level. 

...

Standard Telegram - Bridgeport, Connecticut


BOSTON, Jan. 15. - Probably a dozen persons were killed and 50 injured by the explosion of a huge tank of molasses on the waterfront off Commercial street, today. Tonight the only bodies identified were those of a fireman, GEORGE LEAHY, and two residents of tenements in the vicinity, MRS. BRIDGET CLOUGHERTY and WILLIAM A. DURFEE. A large number of the injured were taken to the Relief hospital.

The tank was owned by the Purity Distilling company a subsidiary of the U. S. Industrial Alcohol company of Cambridge. Two million gallons of molasses rushed in a mighty stream over the streets and converted into a sticky mass the wreckage of several small buildings which had been smashed by the force of the explosion.

The greatest mortality apparently occurred in a city building where a score om[sic] municipal employees were eating their lunch. The structure was demolished. Another city building also was torn from its foundations and two women occupants were severely injured.

A section of the tank wall fell on a fire house crushing it. Three firemen including LEAHY who was killed, were buried in the ruins. The rest of the tank wall crashed against the elevated structure of the Boston elevated railway in Commercial street damaging three spans, suspending all traffic on the line which connects the north and south stations.

A small dwelling on Copps Hills terrace slid into the street, apparently sucked down by the receding tide of molasses. MRS. CLOUGHERTY was thrown through a window and killed.
A trolley freight car on the street was blown from the tracks. Several persons passing were knocked down. It was thought tonight that DURFEE was one of these.

Wagons, carts and motor trucks were overturned. A number of horses were killed.
Sailors' Rescue Party.

The first rescue party was a squad detailed from the State Nautical school ship Nantucket. Scores of ambulances army, navy, police, hospital and Red Cross, were quickly on the scene. The bodies recovered were taken to the Northern Mortuary and the injured were hurried to Relief hospital. Many firemen and city employees began the task of removing the wreckage.

The work of all the men was greatly hampered by the oozing flood of molasses. It covered the street and the surrounding district to a depth of several inches and very slowly drained down into the harbor. To hasten this process the firemen turned on several streams of water.
By nightfall all of the injured had been cared for, and nine bodies had been taken to the mortuary. Throughout the night the search for additional bodies in the wreckage was kept up.

The district was closely patrolled tonight.

During the night two other bodies were identified as those of JAMES LENNON, a motorman, and JOHN M. SEIBERLICH, a blacksmith, both of the Roxbury district. LENNON was a brother-in-law of the late JOHN L. SULLIVAN, the prize fighter.
The men killed were teamsters and employes of the city who were at work in the city street department yard adjoining the electric freight yard where the explosion occurred.

The molasses spread over the street to a depth of two or three inches. Many of those killed or injured were covered with molasses and could not be readily identified.
Buildings Crumble.

Fragments of the great tank were thrown into the air, buildings in the neighborhood crumbled up as though the underpinnings had been pulled away from them, and scores of people in the various buildings were buried in the ruins.

The explosion knocked over the fireboat house of Engine 47. One of the firemen was blown into the harbor. Two others were pinned in the ruins and a fourth was not accounted for.

A nearby tenement house fell in. Two women and a man were taken from the ruins, all injured.

Thirty-five persons were removed to hospitals and many others received medical attention and were sent to their homes.

Eighteen city employees, eating their noon luncheon in an office building in the public service yard were caught in the building when it collapsed. Virtually every man in the structure was either killed or hurt.

23RD STREET FIRE, NYC

Oct. 17, 1966

New York (Associated Press) -- Three aging buildings in an historic corner of downtown Manhattan billowed with flame and choking fumes today in a blaze that may have brought death to 12 firemen -- the greatest single loss of life in the department's 101 years of operation.

Six firemen were killed and six others were feared dead, and 17 were injured in the basement of a three-story building on Broadway, just south of Madison Square and across the street from the Flatiron Building, the city's first skyscraper.

The collapse of four floors in the buildings, said to be 75 years old, heaped a "huge mass of debris" upon the lost firemen, said Fire Commissioner ROBERT O. LOWERY.

"So it's going to be slow and tedious, this business of spotting the firemen and recovering their bodies," he said.

A search for the victims by rescue teams with oxygen masks was cut short when a floor threatened to buckle and firemen raced from the building as their commander shouted, "Get out! Get out! Everybody get out!"

Later the rescue crews returned with sledge hammers and acetylene torches to break a glass and steel grating on the sidewalk in an attempt to reach the trapped men.

Six hours after the first alarm at 9:55 p.m. Monday, tongues of flame still poked from windows and black smoke spread through the streets.

Mayor JOHN V. LINDSAY and Fire Commissioner ROBERT O. LOWERY, each standing ankle deep in water, looked grave as they watched rescue operations.

LOWERY, who had fought back tears when he announced that 12 of his men were missing, said, "There always hope -- but it's pretty grim."

LINDSAY, wearing boots, a rubber coat and leather helmet, shook his head and stared at the scarred building.

"I'm just heartsick," he said.

The fire broke out in the basement of 7 E. 22nd St., a four-story building, then spread west to 904 Broadway and north to 8 E. 23rd St.

Firemen, working in relay teams and carrying oxygen packs, entered the flaming structures, but could not bring them under control as fumes and intense heat drove them back to the street.

The trapped firemen were caught either by a backdraft or gas explosion, LOWERY said.

The impact apparently broke down a wall, sending the men into the heart of the inferno.

At the height of the blaze, 200 firemen and a disaster unit with eight doctors and seven nurses were at the scene.

The medical team treated several men as they emerged from the building.

"We were in the rear fighting the fire," said fireman JOHN DONOVAN. "I was gasping for air, then I suddenly felt myself go through the hole. Some of my men pulled me up by the collar. My buddies are still down there."

Listing Of The Firemen Who Lost Their Lives:

Lieutenant JOE PRIORE, 42, Engine 18.
Fireman JAMES V. GALANAUGH, 27, Engine 18.
Fireman JOSEPH KELLY, 35, Engine 18.
Probationary Fireman, DANIEL L. REY, 26, Engine 18.
Fireman BERNARD A. TEPPER, 41, Engine 18.
Lieutenant JOHN J. FINLEY, 54, Ladder Company 7.
Fireman JOHN G. BERRY, 31, Ladder Company 7.
Fireman RUDOLPH F. KAMINSKY, 33, Ladder Company 7.
Fireman CARL LEE, 29, Ladder Company 7.
Deputy Chief THOMAS A REILLY.
Battalion Chief WALTER J. HIGGINS, 46.
Chief's Aide WILLIAM F. McCARREN, 44.

PICKWICK CLUB, BOSTON

The mayor of Boston blamed the popular dance "The Charleston" for triggering the catastrophic collapse of the Pickwick night club on July 4, 1925.

Investigators determined otherwise, concluding chronic structural problems brought down the Pickwick and not the foot-kicking Charleston.

Box 1471 was transmitted at 3 a.m. summoning the Boston Fire Department.

A second alarm followed.

Firefighters, police and transit authority workers bore through furnishings, lumber, steel and concrete.

A contemporary newspaper account said:

"Without warning the fifth floor of the building collapsed, carrying with it the fourth and third floors.

"The tons of stone, plaster and bricks crashed through to the second floor on the 150 merry makers.

"With a roar that was heard for blocks, the second and third floors were carried down into the basement with their cargo of dead and dying."

When the rescue effort was over, 44 people were dead and many others were in hospital.

...

Rocco Carparto - a professional singer known as ``Teddy Williams'' - watched the disaster unfold, according to a newspaper account:

"Just as the plastering began to come down over our heads there was a rumble. Next was a sound like a muffled explosion. Then the beams began to fall. The whole building seemed to topple."

"Just how it happened I don't know and I guess nobody does. I made a jump for the stairway. But the stairway had dropped and I tumbled down."

"My leg was twisted and thought it was broken, but I managed to get out of the way before the mass of struggling men and women came falling down to the spot where I had landed."

"As I stumbled out of the ruins of the building I could hear the screams of the men and women behind me. I will carry that sound in my heart to the end of my days. I tried to go back and help out but my leg crumpled under me."

"There must have been between 100 and 200 men and women in the Pickwick club

"Most all of them were eating and dancing."

CIRCUS FIRE, HARTFORD

On July 6, 1944,  a circus tent burst into flames during a matinee performance in Hartford, Connecticut, ultimately claiming 168 lives - many of them children.

Sad-faced clown EMMETT KELLY, mourning "the little children who have for so many years give me my living," carried out their bodies from the ruins.

Some were trampled in the rush to escape rapidly moving flames, including a girl whose identity was a mystery for decades.

Police called her "Little Miss 1565" - for her morgue number.

In 1991, investigators said they determined her name was  Eleanor Cook, age 8, who was partial to hair ribbons, cats and dresses.

HARTFORD, Conn., July 7 (United Press) - Five officials of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey circus were charged with manslaughter today while state, county, and municipal authorities pushed a searching investigation into the disaster of fire and panic under the big top in which 139 persons, 80 of them children, died.

While authorities questioned through the night canvas-men, performers, roustabouts, and members of yesterday's matinee audience of 10,000 that saw an acre and more of canvas dissolve into flame above its head, 20 or more of the 214 injured crowding all local hospitals were in dying condition and it was feared that the ultimate death toll would reach 150.

Mayor WILLIAM H. MORTENSEN headed a committee of nine officials conducting an investigation paralleling the coroner's and early today he issued a public statement making two charges:

 (1) The circus tent, the largest in the world had been sprayed with paraffine which had been melted in gasoline

 (2) a steel runway, used to bring animals in and out of the big top closed off an entire end of the oval, obstructing exits.

Approximately 60 bodies were found jammed against the runway, he said.

Authorities, it was learned, were concentrating upon the spotlights perched high in the corners of the biggest tent in the world belonging to the greatest show on earth, which at the instant the fire broke out were illuminating The Flying Wallendas, a high wire aerial act, in their white, hot glare.

A number of witnesses said the fire first appeared directly above one of the spotlights which were so high they appeared to be almost touching the slanting roof of the tent.

At first the fire was merely a red spot, tiny in comparison to the great sweeping acres of canvas to which it was an uncontrollable destructive force.

One second later it had grown to the size of the roof of one of the small, white cottages of the typical Connecticut countryside which so many in the audience had left to see a dazzling array of death defying performers and laughing clowns and were never to return.

With an audible swishing sound it raced toward the center poles and 50 feet below 10,000 men and women momentarily went insane, stamping, kicking, and climbing over one another, and, tragically, hundreds of small children occupying as children will at a circus, the very front seats.

It was all over in 15 minutes, that rapidly did the flames spread over the acres of canvas and dump their ashy remnants down to set the tiers of seats on fire.

Then performers and audience alike rushed into the flame-encircled arena to carry out the bodies of the dead, the dying and the injured.

Hartford Fire Department Assignments 

1st Alarm - Box 82 - Clark & Westland St. - 2:44 p.m.
          #7     900' - 1" nozzle - hydrant front of lot on Barbour Street
                   3 hours, 17 min. Capt. McDonald - pumper worked.
          #2    800' - 1 1/4" nozzle - hydrant front of lot on Barbour Street
                   2 hours, 5 min. Capt. Kirby - pump used.
          #16  1000' - 1 1/4" nozzle - hydrant at 337 Barbour Street
                   2 hours, 46 min. Capt. Yacavone - pump used.
          Truck #3   Lt. Curtin, assisted on lines and rescue work.
          Truck #4   Lt. Connors, assisted on lines and rescue work.

2nd Alarm - Box 828 - Barbour Street & Cleveland Ave. - 2:44 p.m.
          #14    800' - 1" nozzle - hydrant - off #7 pump in front of circus lot.
                    1 hour, 41 min. - Capt. Potter
          #4     800' - 1" nozzle - off #7 pumper
                    1 hour, 40 min. - Lieut. Kelliher
          #3     450' - 1" nozzle - hydrant 132 Cleveland Avenue
                    2 hours, 23 min. - Private E.M. Daley
          Truck #1  Paul Wychodil - assisted on lines and rescue work - 56 min.

Sent by Headquarters on adjacent box - 2:49 p.m.
          #5    1350' - 1" nozzle - hydrant 132 Cleveland Avenue.
                   2 hours, 27 min. Capt. Griffin.

SPECTATOR AT CIRCUS TELLS OF PANIC

Pandemonium Comes as Flames Break Out in Circus Tent

By Edward Bunn

HARTFORD, Conn., July 6 (International News Service) - There were seven in my particular family group at the circus when the flash fire consumed the main tent.

We were sitting in the fourth row from the top tier.

The animal act had just finished, about 15 minutes after the matinee performance began.

We sat back to watch for the next entrance, when suddenly there was a cry of "fire."

Instantly the crowd took up the shout.

Pandemonium broke loose.

Right off the main entrance, a section of the tent about five feet square was ablaze.

While I glanced in the direction of the fire it spread past the main entrance, ever wider and ever upward and within five to six minutes it seemed that the whole main tent was a fiery canvas.

A capacity crowd filled the big tent and thousands rushed toward the main entrance, which by now was being used as the main exit right through the flames.

I'm sure most of the casualties were caused there, for the people trampled over one another.

Circus attendants tried their best to maintain order, but with the big tent fast turning into a fiery shroud it was a case of everyone for himself.

Try as the attendants did, and they really did make an effort to maintain order, there was no holding back the crowd to divert them to better exits where exit would have been more tacile [sic].

By now the canvas behind me had begun to blaze furiously.

I gathered my group about me and we clambered to the top drop from where all of us jumped about 15 feet and squeezed under the guy ropes to safety.

It was a narrow escape for us and I wonder now why others in the upper rows did not attempt the same manner of escape instead of surging around among the thousands in the arena.

PEARL HARBOR, HONOLULU

Photos from top: Damaged fire engine at bomb crater, bullet-riddled Hickam fire station, Captain John Carreira


On Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and surrounding military and civilian targets and the Honolulu Fire Department sent Engines 1, 4, and 6 to Hickam Field.


The attack crippled Hickam Field's hydrant system, gutted the base fire station and destroyed its engines, forcing firefighters to draft water from bomb craters in between waves of Japanese aircraft.

Three Honolulu firefighters died in the attack:

Captain John Carreira
Captain Thomas Macy
Hoseman Harry Pang

Six others were injured:

Fire Lt. Frederick Kealoha
HosemAn Moses Kililikani
Hoseman John A. Gilman
Hoseman Solomon Naauao
Hoseman Patrick McCabe
Hoseman George Correa.

All were awarded the Purple Heart, the only civilian firefighters in the U.S. to receive this recognition.

WOOLWORTH'S, CHARLESTON

Photo: 209 Capitol Street Development

On March 4, 1949, seven firefighters died in a fire and collapse at the F.W. Woolworth & Co. store in downtown Charleston, West Virginia.

A dozen or more were injured.

Firefighters Richard Gilmer and J.P. ``Jigs'' Little were manning a cellar pipe when the first floor fell into the basement.

Gilmer survived.

``I didn't hear or see no more of Jigs at all,'' Gilmer recalled at a memorial service 50 years later.

...

FIREMEN DIE IN MILLION DOLLAR FIRE.

Charleston, W. Va. (Associated Press) -- Seven firemen were trapped and burned to death Friday as a million dollar fire raged out of control for eight hours in two dime stores.

At least 15 others were injured, two critically, in what was described as the most disastrous blaze in the city's history.

Listed in critical condition at a hospital were Capt. CHARLES CLENDENIN, 39, overcome by smoke, and CARL WIBLIN, 25, burned about the face, hands and chest.

Attendants said both had been placed in oxygen tents.

Exhausted firemen wept as the bodies of their comrades were brought out of the Woolworth store basement after the fire was brought under control at noon.

It apparently started in the basement and was well developed when a policeman spotted it at 4 a.m.

One squad of firemen worked down a circular stairs into the basement.

Others took hoses into the first story.

The floor suddenly gave way.

Blazing piles of merchandise, cartons of stock and counters crashed into the basement.

They carried some of the fire fighters along and some of those below were buried up to their arm pits.

"It seemed like the whole store was coming down," said ROY C. HILL, 30-year-old rookie fireman who was swept into the basement but managed to get out.

SHAWKEY JONES said he was able to climb over the debris up to the first floor.

"I reached down and got one of the men by the arms," he related. "I don't know who it was, I couldn't see. I pulled on him and tried to get him out of there. He slipped back away from me."

The dead firemen are:

FRANK MILLER.
FREDDIE SUMMERS.
J. P. LITTLE.
FRANK SHARP.
RICHARD McCORMICK.
GEORGE COATES.
EMORY PAULEY.

Most of them were caught when the floor collapsed.

COATES, a Negro, went in after the trapped men and didn't return.

All the city's fire fighting strength was mobilized as the blaze swept through the three-story Woolworth building and jumped to the roof of the adjoining Kresge store.

They are located on Capitol Street, the main business thoroughfare.

The Woolworth building was burned out.

The roof of the Kresge store burned and partly collapsed.

...

According to website theclio.com:

The Woolworth Department Store in downtown Charleston, WV was a "whites only" department store that caught fire and burned on May 5th, 1949.

Among the seven firefighters who died battling the fire, were two black firefighters, Richard McCormick and U.S. Army veteran George Coates. Had McCormick and Coates tried to sit down to eat a sandwich or have a cup of coffee at the Woolworth’s lunch counter the day before the fire, they would have been denied.

This store was certainly not alone in their "white-only" policy, as several other downtown lunch counters did not allow blacks until 1958. 

The tragedy served as a catalyst for African-Americans in the Charleston area that led to several protests in the 1950s and would lead to city-wide sit-ins and boycotts in the late 1950s. In that year, sit-ins and boycotts organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) compelled most store owners to change their practice.