Analysis Of Fire In The Asch Building

What would you do if you were in the Asch Building during the Triangle Factory Fire? On March 25, 1911 a terrible fire broke out on the top three floors, floors eight, nine, and ten, of the Asch building. A negligent worker threw a lit cigarette in a rag bin, which resulted in 146 of the employees dying. Many lives were unnecessarily lost; they could've been easily prevented. Unfortunately, there were many problems that led to unnecessary loss of life. Fortunately, this devastating event led to many changes made to assure no more tragic events would occur. Still to this day, laws and precautions made as a result of the Triangle Factory Fire are still in law today.

The first detrimental problem that contributed to the unnecessary loss of life in the Triangle Factory Fire was the  lack of safety precautions. The workers not knowing what to do added more confusion and panicking then there needed to be.  In the text “Flesh and Blood so Cheap” Albert Marrin states on line 97, “Had there been fire drills, surely more would have survived.” This quote shows that if a fire drill had taken place, workers wouldn’t be crowding  areas and would know where to go. “The collapse of the fire escape,” “Flesh and Blood so Cheap” line 219, was a result of the confusion of not knowing where to go and lack of safety precautions. Therefore, if there had been fire drills and safety precautions surely many lives would have survived the fire. Additionally, a second cause that contributed to the preventable loss of life in the Triangle Factory Fires was the undersupply of water. Many deaths could’ve been prevented had there been water accessible on the 8th floor of the Asch building. The demonstrator of the video, “America: The Story of Us” exclaimed, “No water!”after he tried to use the hose. Not only that, there were only three buckets of water in the building. This evidence proves that the workers inside of the building were unable to weaken the fire’s strength. If the hose had been hooked up the water line, the fire could have possibly been containable which would have saved many more lives.

One major result from the unfortunate loss of life during the Triangle Factory Fire was the new protection labor laws that were created. Unfortunately during the time of the Fire there were no labor laws protecting the workers, therefore many people were in unsafe working environments. On line 40 of the excerpt “The Story of the Triangle Factory Fire” author Zachary Kent states, “New York quickly passed thirty-three new labor laws by 1914.” This above evidence proves that government officials wanted to enforce safety in working areas, to ensure an event like this wouldn’t happen again. Another positive change that resulted from the loss of life in the Triangle Factory Fire was the design of buildings. During the Fire many workers were unable to escape the building because of the interior design. Beverly Gage from Yale University explained, “New restrictions.” In the Video “America: The Story of Us” also talked about, “It’s why doors open outward in public buildings, automatic sprinkler systems, and multiple exits are now the law.” These details show as a result of this tragedy, public buildings were changed to become safer environments. As well as  making it easier and causing less confusion during an evacuation of a tragedy.

To conclude, 146 lives were uneccarilarly lost during the tragic fire. The lack of safety precautions and undersupply of water were detrimental and led to a lot of deaths. Luckily, public buildings and people can feel safer because of the labor laws that were created and the design of public buildings were changed. It is very sad and unfortunate this event led to the tragic number of deaths, but fortunately it is keeping the public safer.