Fires
A very common death, mostly for women and children, was to have one's clothing ignited by a fire. This often happened to women who stood too close to the stove or an open grate fire. Children and infants could also have their clothing ignited by grate fires or by standing too close to bonfires while playing outside. It was rarer for men's clothing to ignite, and usually in such cases there was an intervening proximate cause such as a lamp exploding or being knocked over.
In one tragic case a woman in her mid-twenties had her clothes catch fire from the stove; her mother's clothing also caught fire while she was attempting to save her daughter, and both women burned to death.
I believe a major contribution to fire incidents is the clothing of the period. Women frequently wore large dresses during the day and loose fitting night gowns. In either case, this would put women at a greater exposure to fire, not to mention the fact that they were probably the only people in the house that operated the stove in the first place. When a case involves a child, typically they are 5 years old or younger. Because they were still growing at a fast rate, children at this age also wore loose fitting garments and spent much of their time around their mother, making them more susceptible to stove fires. Men, on the other hand, wore closer-fitting clothing for safety reasons at their jobs, which was probably industrial in nature. They were also out of the house more than anyone else in the family, exposing them to other dangers but saving them from stove fires.
ZB 11 Sept 2007
Small children tended to light themselves on fire while playing with matches. These children were sometimes less than one year old, which makes me wonder how such a small child was even able to light a match. First of all parents must not have been paying attention or they were leaving them within easy reach. I did some research on the history of matches, and I found out that in the late 1800s and early 1900's "strike anywhere" matches were popular. This meant that even a small child could accidently light a match, easily causing them to set clothing on fire.
AL 20 Sept 2007
1918
Two children, a brother (age 4) and a sister (age 1) died from burns that they recived while they were playing with matches that set off an explosion of gun powder. It really makes me wonder how two children could get a hold of matches at such a young age and manage to ignite them without someone noticing.
191802-022 and 191802-023
AFS 11 June 2008
In a home remedy gone wrong, a 26 year old Polish women was trying to cure her cold with an home remedy. The remedy was to fill a plate with wood alcohol, light it, and then stand over it and inhale the fumes. When she lit the alcohol it caught her clothing on fire and she died from the burns that she recived.
191805-220
AFS 18 June 2008
In June of 1918, a woman was killed by an explosion of an oil can when her husband tried to put out a kitchen fire with said oil. Not exactly the best idea.
191806-237
AFS 01 July 2008
1931
January- One case involved a woman dying in a house explosion caused by a gas leak. Contained in the file was a newspaper clipping showing the remains of the house and a detailed map. The map included the splitting of the house into separate rooms and showed where the gas pipes ran into the home. When the pipes were dug up, it was discovered that a coupled pipe that was leaking gas into the living room through the foundation. It did not tell how the gas was ignited.
CL 05 Oct 2007
August- The case files for the fire of Home of the Little Sisters of the Poor (at Penn/Aiken) were found ranging from 193108_37 to 193108_83. A total of 47 elderly people died in this fire. The verdict states the cause of the fire was undetermined. It could have been either spontaneous combustion from floor scrapings combined with linseed oil, or an overheated floor grinding machine or wire in an electrical circuit. It is mention on Historic Pittsburgh, although the website has the incorrect number of deaths listed http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/chronology/chronology_driver.pl?searchtype=ybrowse&year=1931&start_line=0.
The most interesting thing about this case is the recommendation in the verdict that new safety measures be taken in order to prevent this tragedy from happening again. The majority of those who died were in old age, although I did come across a few in their 30s. The majority who died were also females, probably because their husbands had already passed away and they needed living assistance. It could also be, and probably is, related to the Depression. Perhaps these residents lost their homes because they were retired, had no income, and probably took a financial hit when the stock market crashed.
MG 10 Oct 2007
1932
May- There have been a surprising amount of deaths that involve mishaps with exploding gasoline. One case in May of 1932 was of a young woman who was washing a silk dress in gasoline and burst into flames when she got near the stove. The clothing she was wearing apparently was saturated with some gasoline and when she came within close proximity to an open flame her clothing caught fire and she suffered major burns all over her body. Gasoline, being an intermediate oil, was used frequently as a solvent to remove grease from clothing. It is also highly combustible; not the safest of household cleaning products. The amount of deaths involving gasoline-related burns seems surprisingly high at first glance. But when examining the manner in which these deaths came about it is a little more reasonable. Many are a result of using gasoline as a cleaning product and not being aware of its presence on clothing and hands. Many cases show that men who use gasoline as a solvent or simply work around gasoline, have mishaps in which they light a match for a cigarette and end up with severe burns over their entire body, resulting in many cases in death.
LEG 2007
1940
October- I found a case file that I thought would be worth sharing because it showed a lot of detail in describing how the deaths occurred. There was a fire in Mt. Lebanon in 1940 around 2:30 AM where a mother and her son died as a result of the fire, leaving behind the father and another child. The case included a detailed map of the second floor of the house in which all the rooms and their contents were neatly drawn. It marked the bed of the youth who died in the fire and it also marked where the mother and son were found dead. The report also included a detailed report from the firemen who put the fire out and a description of what they did while putting out the fire.
CL 26 Oct 2007
1942
I found a case that involved a negligent mother who left her children unattended. Case files 194203_96 and 194203_97 were the mother's children (ages 2 and 4) that passed away while she went grocery shopping and left them at home to nap. The room that the children were resting in caught on fire due to a coal stove that spread a fire throughout their room. It makes me wonder if the mother really did not think about the fact that it was unsafe to leave her children at home near a coal stove or if she did it on purpose.
AL 2 Nov 2007
1945
A man was working on his car with a blowtorch in his driveway. He set the lit torch on the ground near a gas tank that caught on fire. He decided that to extinguish the fire he was going to bring the gas tank into his house. On the way inside, he spilled gas on the floor and on himself catching the carpet and his clothing on fire as well. He left the gas tank inside and ran outside to extinguish himself. A neighbor saw him on fire and helped him. Meanwhile, his wife and child were inside on the third floor, clueless of the situation two floors below. The house caught on fire due to the flaming gas tank left inside. His wife and child were unable to get out of the house in time, and they both died. 194511_197-194511_198
AL 15 Nov 2007
1954
I found a case (195411_184) in which an older man was going to bed one night and lit a cigarette while he was lying in bed. The man fell asleep and forgot to put out the cigarette. It fell on to the bed and caught the bedsheets on fire. The man died due to burns. This case had reports from friends and family that the man was an avid smoker and usually kept an ash tray next to his bed.
BG 22 Jan 2008
1956
A mother was out with her 2-year-old daughter one morning walking in an old ballpark near the South Hills area. Local boys (average age around 10) were playing with matches. Carelessly playing in the area around the 2-year-old girl, one of the boys threw a match around the area of the child. The child got close and the fire reached her dress, ignited her clothing. She died of shock due to second and third degree burns to the body. The jury ruled this accidental. 195608_137
BG 28 Jan 2008
1957
This case file is a strange instance of a man who was spray painting a cabinet in his garage with a spray gun. According to the statement made by his wife, he was having difficulty with the spray, so he put turpentine in the paint, and then decided to heat the paint on the stove. The paint caught on fire, so he decided to throw the paint out the door. He ended up throwing it on the storm door, where it splashed off and hit him, igniting his clothes. He then ran to the basement, got a blanket, and wrapped himself in it to put out the fire. He was taken to the hospital, where he later died from his third degree burns. 195711_67
LB 25 Jan 2008
1959
In what must be the most tragic death I have encountered so far, three African American children died of smoke inhalation in a Braddock house fire. Newspaper clippings mention that several earlier fires had broken out in the same area of condemned buildings that the children were living in. At the time of the fire, the mother, also African-American, was returning from running errands both a couple doors down and across the street, and returned home shortly before firemen arrived on the scene. She claims that she tried to run in, but was driven back by the smoke and flames. What makes the incident even worse is the terrible treatment that the mother was apparently afforded, as she was jailed on charges of neglect after being verbally berated by firemen and police regarding her alleged carelessness.
While leaving her young children home alone was certainly neglectful, the harsh treatment that she received from authorities and her subsequent incarceration points to some heavy racism on the part of said authorities. When one considers the flammability of the wood frame "tinderbox" home that the fire broke out in, it could not have taken long at all for the fire to consume the house, and the mother claimed to have been out for a period of about fifteen minutes. Even more damning evidence of racism becomes apparent when the treatment of this mother is compared to that of the white mother who ran out to get groceries while her children played at home, resulting in her youngest child, roughly the same age as that of the children in this incident, being crushed by a refrigerator (195902_28). The mother of that particular child, however, appears not have been charged at all. 195911_162-195911_164
MWB 06 Feb 2008
1960
A 56-year-old man received third degree burns from the waist down when his bed caught fire. He had been smoking in bed; he fell asleep and the sheets caught fire. 196001_196
AP 15 Feb 2008
A 7-year-old girl was playing with matches one day at her house. She lit one of the matches and it caught fire to her dress, giving her burns. The little girl was rushed to the hospital for treatment and admitted on the critical list for second and third degree burns. What is an interesting thing about this was the little girl was in the hospital for 182 days before she died. One of the most common causes of death for burns is shock and burning alive. This little girl did have many blood transfusions, but she died of bronchopnemonia. Evidently she became so winded and was outside trying to beat the fire off she caught pneumonia. 196003-94
BG 11 Feb 2008
A one-and-half-year-old baby girl died in a fire. Her mother had gone outside on the porch to smoke a cigarette when her dress caught fire. She tore off the dress, which fell to the porch, and ran out into the street. The house then caught fire. She ran back in to get the baby, but failed to reach her. A pedestrian ran in to the house and saved the mother. Another pedestrian tried to go in for the baby, but was unable to reach her. The baby's body was found trapped in her playpen.
AP 15 Feb 2008
A 4-month-old baby died from burns sustained in a house fire. The fire broke out in the basement stairwell. The father had been home sleeping at the time and the mother was out. The smoke from the fire woke him up. He ran down the hall to his children's bedroom, saving two children and sustaining burns in the process. A neighbor put a ladder up to the baby's window and rescued the baby. The nearest fire hydrant was about 3/4 of a mile away, so before the firefighters could start fighting the blaze they had to lay 3/4 of a mile of hose to that hydrant. 196004_205
AP 15 Feb 2008
A 24-year-old woman sustained burns in a basement fire. She had thirrd degree burns across 90% of her body. The fire started when she accidentally kicked a gasoline can down her cellar steps. While cleaning up the gasoline, the fumes were ignited, probably by the pilot light on the furnace, and the basement flash exploded. 196005_56
AP 15 Feb 2008
All of these case files involve one incident, where a number of children were killed in a rapid house fire. A mother of six is at home caring for five of her six children (her 8-year-old-daughter is attending school), plus babysitting a neighbor child, when she steps out for a couple minutes to borrow some sugar for their breakfast cereal. The fire starts while she is out, caused not by negligence but faulty wiring. Of the six children in the house, only one 3-year-old boy survives, though he is severely burned and in critical condition. The ages of the children who perished were 2 yrs, 3yrs, 3yrs, 4yrs, and 5yrs, making this incident one of the most terrible tragedies I have witnessed thus far in the files. 196311_13-196311_17
RB 15 April 2008
This case is another house fire-related child death, and as such is a tragedy. However, the quick actions and courage of the parents saved several young lives, and prevented even greater losses. The fire started in a kitchen woodstove, a unique hybrid coal/gas type of range, while the 23-year old mother of five was outside milking the family cow. When she noticed the fire, she quickly alerted her sleeping 36-year-old husband, who then threw on some trousers and began to gather the children and carry them to safety outside. Together they rescue four children from the gas-fueled flames, and the father is on his way to the fifth when he is overwhelmed by the heat and is forced to throw himself from the second story window. All of his clothing burned off except his underwear, and he has severe lacerations on one hand, causing him to be hospitalized. The child who did not survive was a 3 year-old girl who was trapped in her room upstairs. The four children who survived were ages 6 yrs, 3 yrs, 2 yrs, and 5 months old. The sub-zero temperature, and the remoteness of the location (deep in the heart of Arlington Heights) exacerbated the difficulty of the situation. To reach this home, firefighters had to use 4250 feet of hose. It took them 6 hours to set up before they could even start dousing the flames. 196403_75
RB 15 April 2008
In April of this year a 45-year-old black male died of acute toxic nephrosis with acidosis-uremic poisoning due to second and third degree burns of his torso and extremities. A gas-fired space heater exploded in his bathroom. The man had just taken a bath and was drying himself off with a towel. As he was fanning himself with the towel he unknowingly extinguished the flame of the space heater and gas began to fill the room. He lit a match to light a cigarette and the explosion occurred. 196404_24
TG 11 Mar 2008
A 10-year-old white female died of secnd and third degree burns to 80% of her body. Her brother, a 16-year-old boy described in the file as "retarded," threw gasoline on his sister and set her on fire with a burning rag on the end of a stick. This was while he was outside of their house burning trash in a large can. According to the file, he had exhibited violent tendencies before and threatened his sister specifically. He told police that he knew what would happen if gasoline came into contact with fire. More than one person stated they saw him laughing about the incident afterwards. He was charged with manslaughter and forced to undergo psychiatric treatment. 196412_64
TG 12 Mar 2008
1964
1963
In January of this year, a 70-year-old white female died of second and third degree burns of her entire body as a result of an explosion of a hot water heater in her home. The woman was apparently trying to light the pilot light of her hot water heater when it exploded in her face and set fire to her clothing. 196301_046
TG 03 Mar 2008
A 63-year-old man died from second degree burns and smoke inhalation when his clothing caught fire while he was smoking in bed. His wife said it was a nightly habit. 196009_118
AP 25 Feb 2008
A 78-year-old man died from third degree burns and complications due to catching fire while smoking in bed. 196009_120
AP 25 Feb 2008
A 7-year-old girl and a 13-year-old girl died of third degree burns and smoke inhalation in a house fire. The mother had plugged in their TV and lamp for a visitor, into an outlet known to sputter sparks; that is assumed to be the source of the fire. She was able to save three of her five children before the smoke became too much for her. 196009_128-196009_129
AP 25 Feb 2008
A 10-year-old boy found an old kerosene stove in the woods behind his house. He brought it back to his house along with some kerosene. He put it in his living room and poured some kerosene in it, but it would not light. So he poured more on. He lit the kerosene, but he did not think the flames were warm enough. He then moved the stove to near his fireplace and poured a lot more kerosene on. The fireplace mantle caught fire, and then the rest of the house. This boy and one of his friends escaped, but a 1-year-old, two 3-year-olds, and a 4-year-old died in the flames. Apparently the parents left all these kids alone and put the 10-yea- old in charge. From what I got out of the inquest, the parents did not take very good care of the kids, and the 10-year-old got a lot of F's in school. 196004_61 to 64
BF 18 Feb 2008
1961
An elderly woman and her two brothers died of suffocation in a West Mifflin house fire in January of this year, which investigators determined to either be from a cigarette or faulty wiring. One of the brothers was badly burned, but at the time of discovery showed signs of a weak pulse. By the time the ambulance in which he was riding arrived at Homestead Hospital however, he was dead. Damage was estimated at $2,000. 196101_102-196101_104
MWB 19 Feb 2008
An 81-year-old woman died of burns from clothes catching on fire off a candle. She was turned away at Magee Women's' Hospital because they were too busy, and was taken instead to Presbyterian. 196104_08
AP 29 Feb 2008
A 32-year-old man died in a vacant house fire. The source of the fire was undetermined. The body was found in a third floor attic. 196104_146
AP 29 Feb 2008
A 20-year-old man and his friends, a 19-year-man and an 18-year-old man, all died in a fiery car crash. The car hit a tree and exploded into flames fed by the gas tank. The bodies were charred so badly the fire that authorities at the scene were unable to identify the bodies as anything other than males. 196104_165-196104_167
AP 29 Feb 2008
Two house fires killed a total of ten people; both were due to improper wiring. One fire killed an entire family of six. The family had moved into the house only a week before the fire. A newspaper article said that the father of the family was a hi-fi enthusiast, and he had built his own hi-fi set. The set was improperly insulated however, and the fire was due to that. The dad had come home late one night from drinking and was listening to the hi-fi set while his family was sleeping. The father was found at the bottom of the steps, the mother was at the top of the steps holding a baby, two 3-year-olds were in their room, and a 4-year-old fell through the burned out floor. All were very badly burned. 196105_143-196105_148
Another house fire claimed the lives of a father and his three young kids. A wire coming out of the fusebox in the house heated up and set the joists on fire. A newspaper article said that power companies should shut off electricity in homes until faulty wiring is replaced. This newspaper article also mentioned the first fire and how they both were due to faulty wiring. 196105_155-196105_158
BF 02 March 2008
A husband and wife die due to asphyxiation due to smoke inhalation from a burning mattress; the cause of the fire was undetermined. They were found lying in bed, the wife with a burned cigarette in her hand. 196110_222-196110_223
AP 29 Feb 2008
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