July 3, 1902: NEW YORK CITY - At about 9:30 P.M., 12-year-old Agnes Romer was informed by a passerby that the upper floor of her house at 861 East 158th Street was on fire. The girl dashed upstairs and found the third-floor room with fire rolling across the ceiling. The girl crawled to a bed, woke her grandmother and led her to safety. She returned, woke her little brother and removed him as well. She then ran to the corner drug store, got the key to the fire alarm box and transmitted the alarm. Onboard the first arriving engine was Agnes' father, to whom she immediately gave a report of the rescue and of the fire conditions. A line was stretched and the fire was extinguished promptly.
July 4, 1902: NEW YORK CITY - The first fire of the Fourth of July occurred moments after midnight as a skyrocket arced into an open upper-floor window of a planing mill at 258 West 28th St. Within an hour, flames had gutted two large mills. Three alarms were transmitted as the fire extended to several buildings.
July 7, 1902: PLATTSBURG, NY - A fire that started in Utting's storehouse, on Burke Street, was fanned by high winds and was soon out of control. Building after building ignited as the firemen tried valiantly to halt the blaze. Help, in the form of several hundred soldiers from the Plattsburg Barracks, joined the exhausted firemen and held the advancing flames.
July 10, 1902: MARION, MA - A terrible explosion, followed by a disastrous fire, wrecked the works of the Marion Acetylene Gas Company. A leaking steam generator exploded while being worked on and touched off the gas-fed fire that seriously burned two workers.
July 18, 1902: BLOCK ISLAND, RI - A carelessly discarded cigarette apparently caused a fire in a barn that within minutes was sending flaming brands and sheets of flames in every direction. The fire consumed a good portion of Water Street, including the Narragansett Hotel and Cafe, the Weather Bureau, the telegraph office and the Surf Hotel. Firemen did good work with hoses and pails for as long as the water held out, but could not keep up with the rapid fire spread and limited water available.
Time Capsule
JULY 5, 1902: CRANFORD, NJ - FIREWORKS GO HAYWIRE
About 200 people were assembled at the Cranford Golf Club's clubhouse to watch a display of fireworks. As the rockets leaped into the air, a trail of sparks fell into an open wooden box containing other fireworks that immediately ignited. The showers of sparks flew in all directions and rockets smashed into nearby buildings, causing a panic among the guests. Children were knocked down and nearly stampeded by the fleeing adults. Several women had their dresses ignited by the flaming fireworks and several others fainted, adding to the confusion.
Inside the clubhouse people were panicked by reports that that building was also on fire. Fireman Lewis Halsey pulled a garden hose into the structure and attacked the spreading fire. Then, aiming the hose out a window, he was able to extinguish burning wood shingles on the roof. The display was under the charge of a professional pyrotechnician who fled when the accident occurred. Luckily, he was not found by an angry mob of club members who searched the grounds.
Paul Hashagen, a Firehouse® contributing editor, is an FDNY firefighter assigned to Rescue Company 1 in Manhattan. He is also an ex-chief of the Freeport, NY, Fire Department. Hashagen is the author of FDNY 1865-2000: Millennium Book, a history of the New York City Fire Department, and other fire service history books.
