Fire in the Iroquois Theater
The fire at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago , Illinois , claimed 602 lives on December 30, 1903. It is the worst ever fire in a single building in US history and one of the worst disasters worldwide.
The Iroquoise Theater , a marble-and-mahogany, multi-story building at 24-28 West Randolph Street, had been operational five weeks earlier. It offered space for 1724 visitors and was advertised as "absolutely fire-proof". This should be ensured by an asbestos curtain that separated the stage and auditorium in the event of danger.
Events of December 30, 1903
Over 1,900 people, many of them women and children, were in attendance that day during the Christmas holidays when the popular musical Mr. Blue Beard Jr. was performed. The Vaudeville -Star Eddie Foy and a large troupe attracted to the masses. The scenery was created by several square meters of landscape painted on canvas, which could be lowered from the Schnürboden . Flammable oil colors were used when painting .
When the second act began, the choir and many dancers were on stage. At around 3:15 p.m., from a catwalk below the backdrop hanging above, a stage worker saw a thread of canvas ignite above a spotlight. His attempt to extinguish the small flame by hand failed because the spot was a few centimeters out of his reach. The flame began to lick.
Foy had just stepped on stage when there was a short circuit above him and sparks sparked, setting fire to a velvet curtain and backdrops. The stage firefighter wanted to stifle the danger with two powder hoses held ready. They failed. The existing fire fighting equipment was ineffective. There was no extinguishing equipment for a fire developing overhead, such as water hoses. When burning parts of the backdrop fell, the singers ran backstage. The orchestra continued to play, Foy went to the spotlight , tried to calm the audience and asked for the asbestos curtain to be lowered. To the horror of the actor, the hastily lowered curtain wedged into its wooden rails. The protection could no longer work properly.
Actors and dancers now fled into the open through a door behind the stage. The door, which was open to escape, provided for the inflow of icy air, gave the fire food and suddenly led to a very large fireball, which expanded under the dammed asbestos curtain into the auditorium. There the ventilation flaps had opened. Everything flammable immediately caught fire, especially on the gallery and the balconies. The audience fled in panic. The stage began to collapse.
Exits closed with iron bars, doors that could only be opened inward and unfinished escape routes prevented many people from escaping. The relatively inexperienced theater staff was overwhelmed with the action. The people who first encountered obstacles were trampled or crushed to death by those who followed them in panic. When a fire was noticed under an escape route, some visitors jumped down into an alley behind the theater out of fear. There were also jumps from the balconies. While the first to jump off died after hitting the hard pavement, the following landed on these victims and survived. Theatergoers who remained seated were later found dead in their seats. After 15 minutes it was quiet in the auditorium. The arriving fire brigade extinguished the fire 30 minutes after it broke out.
575 spectators were dead, 27 others died as a result of sustained injuries. A nearby saloon has been converted into a morgue to enable relatives to identify the victims. Of the approximately 500 actors, dancers, stage workers , ushers and other workers employed in this performance, only one died, a tightrope walker who got tangled over the stage.
consequences
Within a week of the fire, an investigating judge began investigating the accident. Over 200 witnesses were interviewed. It soon became apparent that there was a laxity in dealing with safety regulations.
It was discovered that the free tickets distributed to the fire protection inspectors had helped them ignore violations of the regulations and allow the theater to open. Allegations surfaced that the asbestos curtain was not made of asbestos at all. The curtain was "gone," which meant that it was either viewed as evidence and removed, or in fact burned. In this case it could not have been made of incombustible asbestos.
Because of the public outrage over the disaster, many have been charged with crimes - theater management, building owners, even Mayor Carter H. Harrison, Jr. , but nearly all charges have been dismissed. The only person convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison was a pub owner who was found to have stolen items from the dead.
Neither the relatives of the victims nor the injured ever received any compensation.
Regardless of the impact, the mayor ordered all 170 theaters, halls and churches in Chicago to remain closed for at least a week after the disaster to review security. His decision made around 6,000 employees temporarily unemployed. New regulations were later enacted nationwide. They only required theater doors that could be opened outwards, marked emergency exits and an iron curtain . The theater management was obliged to conduct fire exercises with its staff.
The exterior of the Iroquois Theater had remained largely intact. The venue was reopened as a Colonial Theater after the renovation work . It was demolished in 1926 to make way for the Oriental Theater .
See also
literature
- Read We Forget: Chicago's Awful Theater Horror. from DB McCurdy, Memorial Publishing Company, Chicago 1904.
- Tinder Box: The Iroquois Theater Disaster 1903 by Anthony P. Hatch, Chicago Review Press, 2003
- Chicago Death Trap: The Iroquois Theater Fire of 1903 by Nat Brandt, Southern Illinois, 2006
Web links
- Side of the Chicago Public Library ( Memento of 8 December 2006 at the Internet Archive ) (English)
- The Iroquois Theater Fire ( Memento of December 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
- Burning Down the House ( Memento from October 18, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
Coordinates: 41 ° 53 ′ 5 " N , 87 ° 37 ′ 43" W.