Reflections On An Historic Fire

I don't know how this article from February 27, 1880 rose to the surface with my Google Alerts, but it did. It is the report of a fire at the Madison Square Garden Theatre in the New York Times. There are some interesting things to note about the incident.

1. The crew was trained to respond to the emergency. There were fire hoses and fire extinguishers readily accessible and put in to use. So well, that the fire was extinguished by the time the fire department arrived on scene. The fire department took only three minutes to get there.

2. The patent ventilating system functioned as designed. So well, in fact, that the manager (who was also the playwright), Steele McKaye, was able to postpone curtain only twenty minutes and still take in $400 that evening. It's a good thing too, that was an expensive piece of scenery. Today it would be worth over $100,000 when adjusted for inflation. The adjusted value of the box office that night...about $8500.

I'd love to interview Mr. McKaye and ask him to elaborate on the last line of the article. It is about risk analysis. According to the article, "Mr. McKaye said he had tried the plan of lighting the border-lights with electricity, but it could not be made to work as the lights are at present arranged."

What would I ask?

Was it too expensive in install the electric igniters at the time? Now that the backdrop needs replacing, is it still too expensive?

Did you weigh the probability of a mishap? Likely? Unlikely? Probable? What was the severity of that same mishap? The torch self extinguishes? It catches the theatre on fire and all of the patron and company die in a conflagration?

Did you identify controls that needed to be in place to mitigate the risk? How about an assistant gasman that follows along with a fire extinguisher? Could you fly the handsome act-drop in or out so it would be safely out of the reach of the torch? What about flameproofing for the drop?

If these measures were in place, was there someone charged with supervising? What were they doing at the time? Does the procedure need to be revised to prevent future occurrences?

Ultimately, this particular risk could have been mitigated through engineering. Always the preferred method, but not always the most economical. Yet other steps could have been taken to prevent this disaster.

The bottom line is that risk management is a simple process and should be ingrained and institutionalized as part of a culture of safety.