On July 6, 1944, fire killed 168 people at a circus in Hartford, Connecticut. ``Shortly after the matinee began, a ball of flame broke out high on the sidewall canvas,'' according to the web site The Hartford Circus Fire. ``As shock turned to horror, thousands of panic-stricken people began a desperate stampede to escape the flames that flowed like a breeze across the tent top, a square mile of canvas that had been waterproofed with a pasty mixture of 1800 pounds of paraffin wax and 6000 gallons of gasoline.'' Among the dead, a girl whose identity was a mystery for decades. Police called her "Little Miss 1565" - for her morgue number.
The NATIONAL FIRE JOURNAL is a web log - AKA ``blog'' - written and edited by Vinny Del Giudice, who served as a volunteer fireman and EMT with the Arlington County (Virginia) Fire Department from 1985-1992. Your editor - a member of the Arlington County Fire Department Historical Society - also publishes blogs about the Arlington County (Virginia) Fire Department, the Springfield (Ohio) Fire Rescue Division and others. E-mail: wb2kqg@arrl.net (This is a hobby. Suggestions welcomed.)
On July 6, 1944, fire killed 168 people at a circus in Hartford, Connecticut. ``Shortly after the matinee began, a ball of flame broke out high on the sidewall canvas,'' according to the web site The Hartford Circus Fire. ``As shock turned to horror, thousands of panic-stricken people began a desperate stampede to escape the flames that flowed like a breeze across the tent top, a square mile of canvas that had been waterproofed with a pasty mixture of 1800 pounds of paraffin wax and 6000 gallons of gasoline.'' Among the dead, a girl whose identity was a mystery for decades. Police called her "Little Miss 1565" - for her morgue number.
