THRILLS AT FIRE

Hokitika Guardian, 1 November 1930, Page 3

THRILLS AT FIRE

BIG LONDON BLAZE

AY OMAN’S DEATH

ANOTHER’S NARROW ESCAPE

Sensational scenes were witnessed in London early on the morning of Sunday, August 10, at a lire which destroyed Bartholomew’s Turkish Baths —a five storey building next to the Alhambra Theatre in Leicester Square. An elderly woman was burnt to death. Another woman who < limbed to a giant electric sign across the front of the building 70ft. above the ground, and screamed for help, was rescued by a heroic Soho fireman, while 10,000 hysterical people looked on. She is in hospital suffering from severe burns.

The crowd wont mad at one time, and the police fought them hack with their lists. Six men received minor injuries, and were, taken to hospital to have them dressed. The flames were confined to the one building, and little damage was done either to the Alhambra Theatre or buildings adjoining on the other side. The two women involved in the tragedy lived in a tiny hack room on the ton floor of the building. Mrs Rachael Barker, aged 62, who was employed in the laundry operated by the proprietors of the baths, was killed. Her body was found by firemen after the blaze was over, lying on tlm floor of her bedroom. She was burned beyond recognition, although doctors state that she must have died from shock before the flames had reached her. SECOND WOMAN’S PLIGHT.

Miss Elizabeth Evans, aged 75, who slept in the same room, managed to fight her way through the flames to the front of the building. There she broke the glass in the window and climbed, in her nightdress, to a letter of a giant electric sign which stretched across the' front of the outside wall.

Ten thousand people—the teeming Saturday night crowds that jxmr through Paccadilly—had gathered in Leicester Square, and a great cry of horror swept the throng. There was a concerted rush forward, and the fire engines were engulfed hv men and women, many in evening clothes, mad with frenzy and desperation shouting “Save her!” Police attacked the crowd with their fists. Every reserve man in “C” division hail been called out, and more than 200 policemen fought to hold the crowd hack. < Six men were injured in the fight and taken to hospital afterward for dressing, while Miss Evans clung sir-reaming with terror to the great “R,” in the electric sign “Turkish Baths” which had short-circuited and

gone out. The time could be measured in seconds. It was actually- less than a minute before fii'emen had rushed their aerial escape ladder so that it reached the point where Miss Evans was perched. BRIGADE OFFICER’S HEROIC FEAT. Sub-Officer Ockletree, of the Soho fire station, swung the ladder round, and as it reached the wall the letter “R” broke. Miss Evans was caught by the top rung and pinned against the frame-work of the sign by her legs. She was unconscious. Mr Ockletree raced up the ladder while men and women below wept and cheered themselves hoarse. The flashing electric lights on the Alhambra Theatre next door flooded the sea of srained unturned faces of the watching crowd like a tremendous spotlight.

There was a. tens'e moment when the firemen below moved the ladder gently back while Air Ockletreo clutched at the limp body of Miss Evans, and then slowly he raised her to his shoulder and el imbed down cautiously step by step. An ambulance was waiting, and the woman was rushed to a, hospital. Air Ockletreo, her resenrer, collapsed when his heroic feat was over and was taken to hospital suffering from reaction, bad cuts from the broken electric globes of the sign, a lid burns: The fire started in the basement at the back of the building. Thp baths were closed, and no one was supposed to he on the premises except Mrs Barker and Aliss Eivnns, who were resident employees. OEfSTRUCTTON OF STAIRCASE. The Inundi-y was situated at the rear in a. separate building which adjoined the baths at the groltnd floor, but was reached by a covered passage-way on the first floor. The boiler room was directly below the laund rv. Tt is believd that the outbreak began in either the boiler room or the laundry, spreading into the maim building and up the wooden staircase. When the staircase was destroyed- - - and it collapsed almost at the beginning, cutting 'bff the escape of the women on the ton floor—the shaftactcd as a chimney, creating a tremendous draught. Tt is considered remarkable that the flames did not spread and wipe out the entire astern block whb-li faces Leicester Square. The wind was blowing from the sc,nth-west corner of the square, and this, coupled with tlm fact that the hydrants on the roof of the Alhambra Theatre were opened so that the roof was continually flooded, saved the theatre. Glass panels in the domes on the roof were broken, hut no other damage was done.