A Desperate Escape on Commercial Street
A Russian immigrant narrowly survives a lodging house fire that authorities suspect was sparked by coal oil.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The first and second floors of a three-story lodging house at 514 Commercial Street were damaged by fire yesterday morning, along with their contents, to the extent of about $1,000. John Wartel, a Russian Finn who slept on the third floor, was nearly scorched to death while attempting to escape the burning building. The alarm was turned in at 4:10 o'clock. When Assistant Chief Marlow reached the scene, he saw flames spreading from the rear of the saloon on the ground floor to the rooms above. The shouts from the crowd awakened Wartel in room 12. In a panic, he attempted to flee, but hit a wall of flames on the stairway that scorched his face and set his clothing ablaze. Blinded by smoke, he retreated to a back window and cried for help, where firemen rescued him. He was taken to Grace Hospital, where doctors initially feared he would not recover from burns covering his body, though he showed signs of improvement by evening. Chief Kellogg is suspicious of the fire's origin due to the presence of coal oil in the northeast corner of the saloon.
“There was not a place on his body larger than the palm of the hand but had been scorched. The hair of his head, eyebrows and mustache were burned off and his face was without form.”
This 1892 report highlights the perilous conditions of Seattle's early lodging houses—a precursor to today’s ongoing battles over fire safety, building codes, and housing stability for the city's most vulnerable renters.
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