what caused the fire in the triangle shirtwaist factory
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire As the workday was ending on the afternoon of Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire flared up at approximately 4:40 PM in a scrap bin under one of the cutter's tables at the northeast corner of the eighth floor.[12] The first fire alarm was sent at 4:45 PM by a passerby on Washington Place who saw smoke coming from the eighth floor.[13] Both owners of the factory were in attendance and had invited their children to the factory on that afternoon.[14] The Fire Marshal concluded that the likely cause of the fire was the disposal of an unextinguished match or cigarette butt in the scrap bin, which held two months' worth of accumulated cuttings by the time of the fire.[15] Beneath the table in the wooden bin were hundreds of pounds of scraps which were left over from the several thousand shirtwaists that had been cut at that table. The scraps piled up from the last time the bin was emptied, coupled with the hanging fabrics that surrounded it; the steel trim was the only thing that was not highly flammable.[12] Although smoking was banned in the factory, cutters were known to sneak cigarettes, exhaling the smoke through their lapels to avoid detection.[16] A New York Times article suggested that the fire may have been started by the engines running the sewing machines. A series of articles in Collier's noted a pattern of arson among certain sectors of the garment industry whenever their particular product fell out of fashion or had excess inventory in order to collect insurance. The Insurance Monitor, a leading industry journal, observed that shirtwaists had recently fallen out of fashion, and that insurance for manufacturers of them was "fairly saturated with moral hazard." Although Blanck and Harris were known for having had four previous suspicious fires at their companies, arson was not suspected in this case.[14]
Carr Fire The Carr Fire was a large wildfire that burned in Shasta and Trinity Counties in California, United States. The fire burned 229,651 acres (92,936 ha; 359 sq mi), before it was 100% contained late on August 30, 2018. The Carr Fire destroyed at least 1,604 structures (at least 1,077 were homes) while damaging 277 others,[1] becoming the sixth-most destructive fire in California history,[6] as well as the seventh-largest wildfire recorded in modern California history.[7] The Carr Fire cost over $1.659 billion (2018) in damages, including $1.5 billion in insured losses and more than $158.7 million in suppression costs.[3][4][5] At its height, the fire engaged as many as 4,766 personnel from multiple agencies. [8] The fire was reported on the afternoon of July 23, 2018, at the intersection of Highway 299 and Carr Powerhouse Road, in the Whiskeytown district of the Whiskeytown–Shasta–Trinity National Recreation Area. The fire was started when a flat tire on a vehicle caused the wheel's rim to scrape against the asphalt, creating sparks that set off the fire.[9]