The orders were for the enclosure of an unenclosed stairway, up which the fire spread, and for the installation of an interior fire alarm system. Both orders had been turned over to the legal department for enforcement, and work on the stairway enclosure was in progress the day before the fire. Plans for the fire alarm system were approved Oct. 22.
Mr. Hammitt stated that the day before the fire an inspector learned that the direct communication of the lodging house with fire headquarters had been cut and ordered its restoration. The report says that Peter Loos, the proprietor, called at fire headquarters at 9 o’clock and said that the communication had not been re-established because it was the work of the landlord, but that there had been a fire in which “three persons were slightly injured.” According to Mr. Hammitt, Edward Brown is the owner of the building.
A glowing match, carelessly tossed into a baby carriage standing in the hall, is believed to have started the fire in which thirteen persons lost their lives in the three-story tenement house in the rear of 986 North Sixth Street, Williamsburg, as told in THE TIMES yesterday. Poor lighting in the hallways may have been an indirect cause of the fire, according to Tenement House Commissioner John J. Murphy.
As in more than 2,000 structures in the city, Commissioner Murphy said, kerosene lamps were used to light the halls. Often the lights go out or are turned out by 11 o’clock, so that persons who go into the buildings later are forced to strike matches to find their way. It probably was a match struck in this way that started the fire.
After an inspection of the district about ten days ago all the property owners were warned that they must keep their lights lighted, according to the law. The inspection disclosed that about 70 per cent. of the houses were poorly lighted.
“Prosecutions for violations of the law relating to lighting are almost without exception in vain,” Commissioner Murphy told a TIMES reporter yesterday, “If the owners are taken to court, they say that the lights went out, or were blown out. The reason for the law is primarily to see that the means of exit are lighted. The danger from matches used to light the way had not been thought so great.”