The Charles William Stores Fire
Hardly had the department succeeded in getting the Dow fire under control when an alarm was received for a blaze discovered in the linoleum department of the Charles Williams mail order stores. So rapidly did it spread that a “borough alarm” was given, calling all the available apparatus in Brooklyn and that located near the water front.
A watchman discovered the fire on the fifth floor of the nine-story, brick structure, among piles of linoleum and oilcloth, and sent in the alarm. Lieutenant Smith and his company were first to arrive and a detachment went at once to the fifth floor with a hose. Firemen Frank Flannery, Thomas Walsh, Law rence Nelson and William Scaplehorn were overcome on the stairs leading from the fourth floor and Lieutenant Smith was able to reach the fifth floor, where he fell, overcome by the heavy smoke and fumes given off by the burning linoleum. Other firemen knew from the action of the hose and the failure to receive signals that the men had been overcome, and a second alarm for additional apparatus was sent in at once, while
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