SECOND HOTEL FIRE

Chronicle (Levin), 10 June 1946, Page 5

SECOND HOTEL FIRE

Press Assn.-

Al Leasl Fifteen Dead OTHERS MAY HAVE PERSSHED

By Telegraph

■Copyright

Reeeived Monday, 12.18 a.m. , ;• NEW' YOjllv, June 9. I At least iifteen are known to be dead and it is feared others perished in an earlv morning flre which destroyed the Caniield Hotel at Dubuque, Iowa. Guests were at the windows sereaming for aid when the ' firemen arrived. Twenty-seven were saved by leaping into nets but three or four missed the nets and were killed. Thirty were reseued by ladders. At least 19 are in hospital. When the outbreak was brought under control iiremen searehed the charred wreckage for bodies s but it miglit be days before all tlie. bodies are recovered. A clerlc said there were 129 guests on the register. Among those believed to be dead in the wreckage are William Caniield, thei 70-year-old owner of the hotel, his wife : and Canfield 's nurse. Firemen reported j seeing Mrs. Canfield tlirow a dog from! the window of their apartment on the j top fioor of the hotei. # The outbreak was discovered near the i eocktail lounge entrance. Firemen said | the blaze spread so rapidfy it was out I of control by the time the iirefighting \ equipment arrived. The hotel consisted of two sections, one a four-storeyed building half a century old, and the otlr'er a six-storeyed aunex 21 years old. Only brick walls are left of the old section wherein most of the fatalities occurred. The damage , to the annex is less extensive but fire- ! men said there were some dead in that, j section. A guest trapped by the flanies drop- , ped to a ledge below lii§ window from ! where he was reseued by firemen. An- ! other niade a rope from bed sheets and I climbod thereby from the f'ourth floor | to a fireman's Jadder which reached only to tlie third floor.