Essay On Dbq Fire

The fire itself was started, as so it is said, by a match being accidentally dropped on a pile of cloth in the work area, which is proof of the unsafe working conditions. The fire had occurred in the late afternoon on Saturday, March 25, 1911, when one of the employees noticed the fire and brought it to the attention of the rest of people on the eighth floor, where it had started. The workers tried to put out the fire with buckets of water, but it quickly began to spread to the bins of scrapped cloth that had not been replaced in weeks and only fed the scorching flames. Others tried to pull the emergency fire hose that was in the building, but there was no water connected to the pipe that connected to the hose, meaning that the building was …show more content…
The fact of the matter is that the working environment should have been maintained strictly. The workers were dealing with cotton fabric, which is very flammable, meaning that the supervisors should have made sure that any scrapped material should have been thrown away outside of the building, especially if there are any open flames in the work area. The building was not prepared for the event that took place and neither were those directly involved. The lack of a safety code was a major benefactor as to why the fire was so devastating to the victims. Another crucial piece to this event was the lack of an escape plan. The building had virtually zero immediate ways of escaping, and the building itself was rather unfit for any sort of emergency that had to do with people evacuating the building. Today, it is impossible to find a business or a building without a safety code and fire escape plan that supervises the elements of the workplace, such as a regulation on any flammable objects and a maintained trash schedule. Also, every business must have a fire escape plan drawn out as well as the rehearsal of a fire drill. The fire that occurred on 1911 not only changed the garment industry’s working environment, but that of every