SKYSCRAPER FIRE,

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3297, 16 August 1911, Page 8

SKYSCRAPER FIRE,

BRIGADE ESTABLISHES A RECORD.

New York’s firemen gave a thrilling (exhibition of acrobatic skill recently in fighting a fire 560 ft in the air, on the top floor of a municipal building twen-ty-five storeys high, opposite the City Hall Park.

The building, which is in process of construction, is little more than a skeleton of steel pillars and girders. Fire broke out amid a large pile of rubbish and temporary wooden flooring on the top storey. Flames leaped high in the air rivalling the torch of the Statute of Liberty. The firemen could not reach the seat of the fire with a hose from the street-, so they clambered up improvised ladders, dragging the heavy hose to the twenty-third floor, where a standpipe is installed in the building. The hose was attached to the standpipe and carried two floors higher to the fire, while the engines in the street, 560 ft. below', pumped water through the standpipe. The firemen balanced themselves like circus performers on narrow steel beams, and fought the fire half an hour before they could get it under. It is believed that this constitutes a wolid’s height record for a fire.