A Better Way to Die?
The Asch Building which housed the Triangle Factory (top three floors) was said to be fireproof. The deadly fire on March 25 was not its first. A series of fires starting in 1902 destroyed the contents of the factory. Triangle owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris were well covered insurance-wise, however.
In the novel, The Triangle Murders, Fiona tracks down the earlier fires and puts her own life in danger.
The Asch Building (Photographer: unknown, March 25, 1911, Copyright: Kheel Center, Cornell University, http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/) It was also not the only unsafe building where so many young immigrant women worked six or seven days each week.
Once the fire broke out, it spread so quickly that there was little hope for escape. Even the one fire escape turned deadly.
The flimsy fire escape ladder descended close to the building forcing those fleeing to struggle through flames and past warped iron window shutters stuck open across their path. Sections of ladder which ended two stories above the ground, twisted and collapsed under the weight of workers trying to escape the fire killing many who had chosen it as their lifeline. (Photographer: unknown, 1911, Copyright: Kheel Center, Cornell University, http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/)
Fiona, trapped, watched in horror as her friends fell to their deaths below as the ladder broke.
Tragically, although the fire engines arrived quickly, their ladders and hoses reached only to the sixth floor, some thirty feet too short. Their attempts at nets and tarpaulins below were futile. Jumpers tore right through them or suffered fatal bodily harm by the vicious landing.