The Great Hartford Circus Fire was in a way a veritable perfect storm as far as tragedies go, compounded not only by the carelessness of circus personnel and the negligence of Hartford city officials, but also the inefficient and unprofessional handling of the investigation itself.
While not singularly at fault for the fire, the circus can be ascribed a fair portion of the blame. Due to the war effort’s massive resource consumption, the circus was unable to obtain non-flammable waterproofing agents. In response to this challenge, they returned to a time honored waterproofing technique, which was the use of large quantities of gasoline and paraffin wax. Though cheap and effective, this mixture was highly flammable. On top of this, manpower was also lacking due to the war as well, which led the circus to employ the use of local teenagers and untrained workers to set up the big top and seating. (Bollier & Cohn, 7) This lack of manpower caused the circus to run behind schedule in arrival and set-up, and the time crunch led the circus to cut corners. The circus usually needs to have the grounds inspected by police, and require clearance from city officials regarding the safety of the grounds and big top; however, in an effort to save time, the circus bribed Police Chief Hallisey with 50 free tickets in return for a permit without a prior inspection of the grounds. (McKinley, 65) All of these oversights definitely contributed to the eventual tragedy, however, they were not the only ones at fault.
Along with the mistakes made by the circus, the negligence of Hartford officials, most notably the fire and police departments, was just as responsible for setting up the event for failure. Though the circus was clearly in the wrong for offering a bribe, the police were just as wrong for taking it. Since there was never an inspection of the grounds, the police did not have an accurate idea of many police officers would be necessary to supervise the event. They allotted 9 police officers and 3 detectives to supervise a crowd of over 7,000 spectators along with circus personnel. (McKinley, 66) Similarly, the Hartford city fire department also failed to inspect the grounds. While the fire department is not obligated to inspect a temporary structure for fire hazards, the fire marshal is still expected to make sure that all points of egress are not blocked and are easily accessible. (McKinley, 66-67) In addition, due to how frequently this area had experienced fires, the fire department should have known to inspect the grounds. (Bollier & Cohn, 7)
Though it is clear that the negligence of all parties may have facilitated this tragedy, the actual cause of the fire was never officially decided. While many have speculated what might have caused the fire, due to the police’s inability to close off the scene with such small numbers as well as a faulty investigation, no definitive source of the fire was ever posited. Seeing as the scene was not closed properly, evidence was tampered with and destroyed, leaving only the testimonies of witnesses. As a result, it was believed that the blaze was begun by a carelessly tossed cigarette, as claimed by an unidentified young boy. (McKinley, 67) However, a subsequent investigation, as well as the confession of a then well-known arsonist by the name of Robert Dale Segee in 1950, led the police to believe that the fire was indeed an act of arson. This confession, however, was later thrown out due to Segee’s history of mental illness and withdrawal of his confession. (Bollier & Cohn, 17-18) Ultimately, a set cause was never decided on, and what really sparked the fire that killed 169 people is still unknown today.
This above image was obtained from a website that is dedicated to the Hartford Fire, though the identity of the photographer was not disclosed. (Hartford Circus Fire) The photograph displays the northern exit near the rear of the tent several minutes after the fire had begun. A group of spectators watch as the first people begin to attempt to squeeze past the animal crates in the middle of the shot. Directly beyond those crates is most likely a pile up of struggling and desperate mob of people, some being trampled to death under the weight of the masses. The image gives a first person point of view of the size of the fire and shows the difficulty that the survivors faced when trying to escape the inferno. This highlights the fact that the bottlenecked passage between the crates hampered the egress of both patrons and circus personnel alike. Had there been an inspection of the exits and their accessibility by either the police or fire department, this aspect at least of the tragedy could have been avoided. Likewise, if there had been a greater police presence on the grounds, they may have been able to help usher the people to safety and assist circus personnel in keeping the crowd calm. The lack of police officers on the scene also prevented the containment of the scene as evidenced by the groups of bystanders and spectators in the foreground of the image in such proximity to the burning big top. Had city officials done their jobs properly this image could have been very different.
