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Reflective Essay: The Triangle Factory Fire

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The Triangle factory fire was one of the most harrowing events that I had the displeasure of witnessing. I was visiting a friend that day and we were having tea when we heard the first siren. One siren turned into multiple sirens, police and fire sirens seemed to mix into one sound coming from different directions. When we left the house we saw many people traveling in the same direction, east. When we arrived to the scene of the fire, workers started to jump. I saw people standing in the windowsills, crowded by the other people behind them.People were yelling telling them to “not jump” and that “help is on the way”, but it was all for not because at this point the gruesome reality was that there was nothing the fire department could do for …show more content…

The eighth floor of the factory was filled with highly flammable items like fabric, paper, wood, cotton, and tissue paper. This allowed the fire to spread very quickly, I can only imagine how it grew with each object it consumed in its fiery jaws. Burning wisp of cotton and paper flew around the room, wherever these pieces landed gave birth to new flames. Employees were running all over trying to escape the now inferno they once called a factory. The Triangle fire killed 146 people and many others were badly injured. Everyone who jumped, mainly from the 9th and 10th floors, were killed. This was the highest death toll for any fire I've ever heard a factory having, 25 workers died in the Newark factory fire. After that fire I knew that another fire was going to come up as fire safety was not the main concern in New York factories. There was only way to escape as the elevator was engulfed in flames almost immediately after the fire started and the fire escape was poorly designed and even started collapsing as the fire raged on. the only other means of escaping was

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