Our Lady of the Angels School fire building as in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. However, its interior was made almost entirely of combustible wooden materials—stairs, walls, floors, doors, roof, and cellulose fiber ceiling tiles. Moreover, the floors had been coated many times with both flammable varnish and petroleum-based waxes. There were only two (unmarked) fire alarm switches in the entire school, and they were both in the south wing. There were four fire extinguishers in the north wing, each mounted off the floor, out of reach for many adults and virtually all of the children. The single fire escape was near one end of the
Great Chelsea fire of 1908 Great Chelsea fire of 1908 The Great Chelsea fire of 1908, also known as the First great Chelsea fire, was a conflagration that occurred on 12 April 1908, in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Nineteen people were killed, fifteen thousand people were left homeless, and were burned in the fire. The fire started two hundred yards away from the Great Chelsea fire of 1973. According to a summary of the fire at the time: On Sunday April 12 1908, at about 11 in the morning, an alarm was rung for a fire in the works of the Boston Blacking Company on West 3rd