Nine Firemen Killed When Floors Collapse at Chicago Fire
Falling Roof Carries Floors and Stairway to Basement; Firemen Operating on Stairway Trapped
NINE members of the Chicago Fire Department lost their lives on July 9 at a fire in an old four-story brick building, when the roof of the structure fell and carried the floors and stairway below to the basement. Those killed were Captain Arthur Barcal (acting Battalion Chief), Captain Henry Wurthmann. Lieutenant Edward J. Moffett, Captain Matthew McDonough, Fireman Robert Walsh, Fireman Richard Jablonski. Fireman Thomas McCarthy, Harry Weinel of the Fire Insurance Patrols, and Fireman Joseph Strenski.
Two fires occurred in the structure. The first fire started at 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, and was extinguished by the Department. Then on Friday, when refuse in the basement of the building next door was ignited, a defective chimney threw sparks through a hole in the wall of the fire building and started a new fire. Investigators, when checking up on the cause of the second fire, kindled a fire in the incinerator of the building next door and observed the discharge of sparks through the defective chimney and through the standing wall of the burned building.
The second fire was discovered at 1:50 a.m. on Friday, and a four alarm summoned thirty fire companies and 160 men to the scene.
Firemen started stretching lines up the stairway, which ran along the east wall of the building. There were men on each of the four stair landings, about twenty in all. handling the hose. Adelbert White, Chief Fire Marshal of the First Division, who was in charge of both tires, stated that he was on the stairs at the second floor level when he had a premonition that something was going to happen. He ran up the stairs ordering all men out. When he neared the landing on the fourth floor, the collapse came.
The roof fell in, sending timbers crashing down upon the stairway which gave way. The men fell with it, and many of those on the lower floors were plunged into the basement beneath the debris. Chief White was pinned beneath a plank, but was released by a fireman and made his way to safety through the front door of the building.
Fire Commissioner Michael J. Corrigan arrived and took charge of the rescue efforts. A survey of the front wall of the building which was cracked and bulging indicated that rescue operations would have to he carried on under extreme hazard. However, the condition of the structure did not hamper the heroic work of the Chicago Fire Department members in effecting rescue of those buried beneath the debris.
Difficult to Reach Bodies
It was apparent that removing the fallen timbers to release those trapped through the front of the building might further endanger the trapped men. Aiso, the rescuers feared that any more tampering with the upper structure might bring it down, so all hose lines except one used to prevent fire breaking out were shut off. Commissioner Corrigan ordered holes drilled in the basement wall with air hammers. Another hole was cut into the basement from the front through a sewer, but it was impossible to remove the dead and injured through either of these openings, because of the danger of causing further collapse of the wreckage. It was necessary to work through a front window on the ground floor and lift away the debris a piece at a time in order to get at the men inside. Meanwhile part of the north wall of the building, at the fourth floor level, had caved in, further impending rescue work.
Because of the large quantity of the debris precipitated into the basement of the structure, it was not until nearly six hours after the building had collapsed that the first body was removed. Thereafter one by one the bodies were extricated. A number were gotten out alive and survived the ordeal, while others died after removal to the hospital.
The burned building was occupied bv the H. Field Transfer Company, the Wilmer Snow Co., a light fixture concern, and the Joe Ott Manufacturing Company, makers of model airplanes. The Ott Company used the fourth floor as a storage place for cartons in which the model planes were packed.
Russell Mansfield, Chief Inspector, City Department of Buildings, said that the structure was inspected last in January, when the lower two floors were devoted to light manufacturing and the upper two were vacant. The inspectors estimated the weight of supplies and equipment on the occupied floors of the building and compared the loading per square foot with the floor load chart. The floors were found to carry loads well within the city requirements.
Floor Loaded Beyond Legal Limit
However, investigators Paul Gerhardt, Jr., Commissioner of Buildings and Thomas Gary, Commissioner of Sewers, ascertained that in the fourth floor storage space used by the Ott Company at the time of the fire, the load was approximately 125 pounds per square foot, which was in violation of the rules and regulations limiting the floor to forty pounds per square foot. The company reported that it had on hand 350,000 bundles of airplane cartons stored there, and Gcrhardt estimated that with 300 cartons to the bundle the amount totaled approximately 125 pounds per square foot.
It is believed that the water discharged on the materials at the Thursday fire, plus that which was added at the fire on Friday so badly overloaded the floor as to cause a bulging of the walls. This in turn caused the roof beams to slip front their supports, permitting the roof to drop. In addition, the roof and floor beams had been weakened due to the fire.
For a city the size of Chicago, and with its unusually rapid growth, the number of fires which have resulted involving heavy loss of life are comparatively few. The list since 1871, the date of the Great Chicago Fire, includes the following:
October 8-9, 1871. The great Chicago Fire, which cost 200 lives, destroyed 17,450 buildings, with a money loss of $168,000,000.
Chicago Daily News Photo
July 10, 1893. Seventeen persons killed while 30,000 visitors in the Columbian Exposition watched when fire destroyed the Cold Storage Building on the fair grounds, now Jackson I*ark.
December 30, 1903. The Iroquois Theatre fire, in which 575 lives were lost.
January 20, 1909. Sixty workmen were burned to death or drowned when fire swept a temporary water intake crib, halfway between the Edward F. Dunne crib and the shoreline at 6)8 Street,
December 22, 1910. Twenty-four men, including a fire marshal, were lost when fire destroyed the Morris & Co. packing plant at the Stock Yards.
April 18, 1924. Nine firemen and one civilian perished when a wall collapsed in the Curran Hall fire at 1363 Blue Island Av.
April 13, 1931. Eleven lives were lost when fire and gas trapped workers in an intercepting sewer tunnel at Cermak Road and Laflin Street.
May 11, 1934. One killed in a $4,617.000 fire which swept the Stock Yards.
September 30, 1935. Ten killed when the owner, in order to collect insurance, set fire to his grocery store at 558 W. Taylor Street over which the victims lived.
June 16, 1941. Three firemen killed at the Chicago Mill & Lumber Co. plant, 940 N. Ogden Avenue.
January 5, 1943. Six died in fire which swept a bowling alley at 9354 S. Ashland Avenue.
