THRILLS AT A FIRE

Taranaki Daily News, 15 October 1930, Page 9

THRILLS AT A FIRE

ELDERLY WOMAN’S DEATH. ANOTHER’S NARROW ESCAPE. "A;".'; Sensational scenes were witnessed in London early on the morning of Sunday, August 10, at j a fire whmli destroyed Bartholomew’s Turkish Raths a five-storey building next to the Alhambra Theatre in Leicester Square. _ An elderly woman was burnt to death. Another woman who climbed to a giant electric sign across the front of the building 70 feet above the ground and screamed for help was rescued by a heroic Soho fireman, while 10,000 hystei ical people looked on. She is in hospital suffering from .severe burns. . The crowd went mad at one time;, ana the police fought them back with thenfists. >Six men received minor injuries, and were taken to hospital to have them dressed. The flamfcs 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 back room on the fop floor of the building. Mrs. Rachael Barker, aged 62, who was employed m the laundry operated by the proprietors of the baths, was killed. Her body was found by firemen after the blaze was over, lying on the 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. , . ■ , „ , Miss Elizabeth Evans, aged 05, 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 <?f a giant electric sign which stretched across the front of the outside wall. Ten thousand people—-the teeming Saturday' 1 night crowds, that . pour through 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 by men and women, manyin evening clothes, mad with frenzy and desperation, shouting “Save her!” Police attacked the crowd with their fists. Every reserve man in “C” division had been called out, and more than 200 policemen fought to hold the crowd 15 Six men were injured in this fight and taken to hospital afterwards for dressing, while Miss Evans clung screaming 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 firemen had rushed their aerial escape ladder so that it reached the point where Miss Evans was perched. . Sub-Officer Ockletree, of the Soho fire station, swung the ladder round, and as it reached the wall the latter “R” broke. Miss Evans was caught by the top rung and pinned against the framework 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 strained upturned faces of the watching crowd: like a tremendous spotlight. There was a tense moment when the firemen below moved the ladder gently back while Mr. Ockletree clutched at the limp body of Miss Evans, and then slowly he raised her to his shoulder and climbed down cautiously step by step. An ambulance was waiting, and the woman was rushed to a hospital. Mr. Ockletree, her resucer, 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, and burns. The'fire started in the basement at the back of the building. The baths were closed, and no one was supposed to be on the premises except Mrs. Barker and Miss Evans, -who were resident employees. The laundry was situated at the rear in a separate buildings which adjoined the baths at the ground floor, but was reached by a covered passage-way on the first floor. The boiler room was directly below the laundry. It is believed that the dutbreak began in either the boiler room or the laundry, spreading into the main buildinc and up the wooden staircase. When the staircase was destroyed—and it collapsed almost at the beginning, cutting off the escape of the women on the top fl oor —the shaft acted as a chimney, creating a tremendous draught. It is considered remarkable that the flames did not spread and wipe out the entire eastern block which faces Leicester Square. The wind was blowing from the south-west across the square, and this, coupled with the fact that the hydrants on the roof of the Alhambra Theatre were opened so that the roof was continually flooded, sailed the theatre. Glass panels in the domes on the roof were broken, but no other damage was done.