If there was a significant fire or emergency that occurred 100 years ago in your department, or your department's 100th anniversary is coming up, please drop us a line for possible inclusion in "Rekindles" in an upcoming issue.
Dec 1, 1898: PHILADELPHIA - A serious fire was averted in the large Wanamaker's Department Store. Flames were seen in a large section of wicker baskets and were quickly extinguished. Security guards apprehended a man for setting the blaze in the busy store. The structure takes up an entire city block and is five stories high. Thousands of shoppers were in the store at the time of the fire, but few of them realized the danger they were in.
Dec. 2, 1898: ROCHESTER, NY - An early-morning fire broke out in the city's oldest theater, the Academy of Music. The blaze spread quickly, destroying five restaurants housed below the theater. Radiant heat ignited an arcade across the street and firemen worked feverishly to protect a nearby art gallery.
Dec. 7, 1898: WEST SUPERIOR, WI - A fire spontaneously erupted in a large pile of soft coal on a dock of the Lehigh Coal and Coke Co. Workers climbed on the pile with a hose in an attempt to quell the deep-seated fire. Unseen flames had eaten away at the dock's supports and without warning the structure collapsed, carrying the men down with the burning coal. Chief Kellog supervised the city's firemen in a valiant rescue of the buried men. After hours of dangerous work, one worker was removed alive, but the growing fire barred further rescue attempts.
Dec. 11, 1898: BROOKLYN, NY - Fire broke out in a five-story brownstone building on Prospect Place. Two men attempting to warn people trapped by the cellar fire entered the adjoining building and ran for the roof. The first man failed to see a shaft between the structures, stepped off the roof and plunged to his death. The second man then returned to the street and transmitted the alarm. The fire took the lives of three tenants.
Dec. 19, 1898: TERRE HAUTE, IN - A blaze that started in the show windows of Havens & Geddes Co. among cotton window decorations soon found evergreen decorations lining the store's walls and spread quickly. The store, filled with employees and shoppers, was soon a sheet of flames. Numerous people were injured as they rushed to escape; one man, acting as the store's Santa Claus, was missing and feared dead as the fire consumed the structure. The rear walls of the building soon gave way, destroying several other businesses and injuring numerous firemen.
Dec. 21, 1898: MONTREAL - One of the city's finest warehouse and office blocks was ravaged by flames. The Greenshields Block was six stories, built of stone and housed a number of thriving business concerns, including wholesale dry goods, boot and shoe stores, and offices. The newspapers reported that there were "many miraculous escapes of firemen."
Dec. 24, 1898: BURLINGTON, VT - Twelve acres containing 11 million feet of lumber, a planing mill, eight sheds and a large quantity of machinery were swept by fire during the afternoon. The entire plant of the Shepard & Morse Lumber Co. was lost and only the valiant efforts of firemen stopped the flames from spreading to nearby property. Three men were arrested by police for possibly setting the fire. The loss was estimated at a quarter of a million dollars.
TIME CAPSULE
The First High-Rise Fire - Dec. 4, 1898: The Home Life Building In New York City
In 1898, firefighting in New York City was becoming more and more complicated. With the advent of the elevator, a skyline of church steeples and ships' masts was giving way to that of tall buildings and suspension bridges. The skyline of lower Manhattan was obscured the night of Dec. 4, 1898, by a major storm that was pounding the city. At about 10 P.M., two police officers were trudging along their beat when they came upon the building of the Rogers & Peat Co. on the corner of Broadway and Warren Street, just across from City Hall. They saw a small spiral of flame spinning from a window and dashed to turn in the fire alarm.
The horse-drawn apparatus arrived to find every window of the five-story structure belching flames. Wind blown bursts of fire and streams of embers poured across Warren Street and exposed the United States Insurance Co. building on the northwest corner. Chief of Department Hugh Bonner positioned hoseline after hoseline to protect the structure. Twelve months earlier, Bonner took command of three fire departments (New York City, Brooklyn and Long Island City) when the Greater City of New York was formed. The new department had 121 engine companies, 46 hook and ladder companies, one water tower and one hose company to protect a city that was expanding in every direction including up. The buildings were growing beyond the reach of the chief's firefighting equipment, but few paid any attention to the questions being raised by the chief and his officers.
The streets were filling with people willing to brave the weather to watch a blaze that was becoming one of the most spectacular in years. Bonner dashed from vantage point to vantage point and rallied his men. The situation in the U.S. Life Building was stabilizing when the wind changed direction and flames appeared in the 16-story Home Life Building next door. This fireproof structure, built in 1894, was designed by renowned architect Napoleon Le Brun (who also designed more than a dozen FDNY firehouses). Fireman began to climb the stairs in the skyscraper and connected their hoses to the standpipe system in order to fight the blaze. Door after door was forced and the battle was joined on numerous floors simultaneously. Weary firemen were driven out of each floor by wind blown flames, as the fire took control of the building. At 11:15, after a 45-minute battle, fire was showing on the top seven floors of the pyramid-topped Home Life Building.
To add to the chief's extensive problems, the Postal Telegraph Building next to the Home Insurance Building was also being threatened on its upper floors. Bonner was again leading the charge, as hoselines were stretched through the Postal Building. Hose streams were being directed from every vantage point. The battle raged for hours until the fire began to subside. The original fire building had collapsed, the Home Life Building's upper floors were burned out. The exposures sustained damage, mostly from water. Bonner's men had won, but barely.
Bonner had long battled the makers of skyscrapers. In 1895, he was quoted as saying, "My belief is...that a fireproof building is more dangerous in itself and to the surrounding structures than the old-fashioned structure." The chief's prophecy about the dangers of high-rise fires would be proven again and again.
Compiled by Paul Hashagen
