Amanuensis Monday - Fatal Fire in Brooklyn Kills Firemen

The Evening World, New York, NY - 27FEB1920 pg1

This post is a follow up from a Memorial Monday post back in April that listed six fire fighters from Union L94 out of New York. I found the article on newspapers.com that talks about the fire, but only two are listed as having died and one other as expecting to die, but when you look at the list of the injured they are all listed on the memorial's panel which would lead me to believe that they died at some point that year of their injuries. The only person in the list of the injured that survived was Isaac Ludgate.

Even sadder, two of the casualties were brothers.

"Blow-Up at Brooklyn Fire Costs Lives of Firemen; Five Others are Injured

One of Victims Blinded and Is Expected to Die - Blaze Starts in Hold of Boat and Spreads with Great Rapidity.

The Evening World, New York, NY - 27FEB1920 pg1

Two firemen were killed and five injured in a fire and explosion that until early to-day menaced the Nassau works of the Brooklyn Union Gas Company, at Kent Avenue and Rush Street, Brooklyn. The dead are:

Brennan, Thomas, thirty-eight, No. 162 Washington Park, Brooklyn.
Karkle, Michael, thirty-seven, No. 246 Woodbine Street, Brooklyn.

The injured are:

Callmeyer, Frank, twenty-eight, No. 110 Forbell Street, Brooklyn.
Ludgate, Isaac, Acting Battalion Chief, forty-five, No. 50 Newell Street, Brooklyn.
Brown, Samuel, fifty, No. 1329 47th Street, Brooklyn.
Hughes, James, forty-six, No. 69 Clinton Avenue, Brooklyn.
Brennan, James, No. 257 Lexington Avenue, Brooklyn.

James Brennan, brother of Thomas, is expected to die. He is blind and is burned all over the body. He and Chief Ludgate, who is burned about the hands, face and body, but not seriously, are in the Williamsburg Hospital. The others are in Cumberland Street Hospital.

Fire Starts in Boat at Rush Street.

At 8 o'clock last night fire started in the hold of a supply boat at the gas company's pier at the foot of Rush Street. A second alarm brought several companies, and in two hours the flames were under control and all the companies returned to quarters except Engine Company No. 231.

While a crew of fifteen men were wetting down the fire, flames suddenly jumped from the boat to a refuse tank of tar - called 'drippings' - a short distance away on the pier. Firemen rushed toward the tank to extinguish the blaze, but within a few seconds there was an explosion that sent blazing tar and oil in all directions.

Seven of the firemen, many of them blown yards away, disappeared in the heavy smoke and their comrades, some of them themselves burned, formed a rescue squad.

The five men now in the hospital were carried to safety before the bodies of the dead were recovered. The latter were burned almost beyond recognition, and it was more than an hour before it could be learned which of the Brennan brothers had lost his life. Chief Ludgate paid no attention to his injuries until he saw his men had been cared for. Before going to the hospital he telephoned his wife to allay her fears.

Just before the first (sic - fire) started Chief Ludgate had been telling the men in Engine House No. 251 how exactly one year ago last night he had been trapped in a blaze in Walkabout Street and badly burned.

20,000 Gallons of Tar Refuse Blow Up.

A third alarm was sent in after the explosion, but the fire was under control at midnight, having done a damage of $10,000. It is estimated there were about 20,000 gallons of tar refuse in the tank that blew up.

The menace to the big gas storage tanks of the company developed an unidentified hero in an employee of the company. He opened the escape valves of the tanks and the gas flowed off to reservoirs blocks away. In the mean time fireboats had arrived and did good work until the danger was over.

Fire Marshal Trophy has begun an inquiry into the causes of the fire and explosion.

The Evening World, New York, NY - 27FEB1920 pg2

Thomas Brennan had been in the Fire Department nineteen years and has been six years with Engine Company No. 251. He received the departmental medal two years ago for his bravery in rescuing, with Fireman Frank Flannery, Capt. Smith of the company and four men who had been overcome at a hose nozzle on the second floor of the Charles Williams Stores. Arriving late from theatre duty, the two fought their way along their company's hose line until they stumbled over their unconscious comrades. One by one they dragged the five out to the resuscitated.

Brennan leaves a wife, who was too ill to be told of his death, and six children, three boys and three girls, ranging in age from seventeen to twenty-six years.

Michael Karel, who entered the company at the same time Brennan was transferred to it, was decorated with the department medal for entering a burning celluloid factory in Williamsburg last summer and releasing members of the company who were so trapped that in a few minutes all of them would have been burned to death. He leaves a wife and a two-year old daughter."