<P> As the workday was ending on the afternoon of Saturday , March 25 , 1911 , a fire flared up at approximately 4 : 40 PM in a scrap bin under one of the cutter 's tables at the northeast corner of the eighth floor . The first fire alarm was sent at 4 : 45 PM by a passerby on Washington Place who saw smoke coming from the eighth floor . Both owners of the factory were in attendance and had invited their children to the factory on that afternoon . The Fire Marshal concluded that the likely cause of the fire was the disposal of an unextinguished match or cigarette butt in the scrap bin , which held two months ' worth of accumulated cuttings by the time of the fire . Beneath the table in the wooden bin were hundreds of pounds of scraps which were left over from the several thousand shirtwaists that had been cut at that table . The scraps piled up from the last time the bin was emptied , coupled with the hanging fabrics that surrounded it ; the steel trim was the only thing that was not highly flammable . Although smoking was banned in the factory , cutters were known to sneak cigarettes , exhaling the smoke through their lapels to avoid detection . A New York Times article suggested that the fire may have been started by the engines running the sewing machines . A series of articles in Collier 's noted a pattern of arson among certain sectors of the garment industry whenever their particular product fell out of fashion or had excess inventory in order to collect insurance . The Insurance Monitor , a leading industry journal , observed that shirtwaists had recently fallen out of fashion , and that insurance for manufacturers of them was `` fairly saturated with moral hazard . '' Although Blanck and Harris were known for having had four previous suspicious fires at their companies , arson was not suspected in this case . </P>
<P> As the workday was ending on the afternoon of Saturday , March 25 , 1911 , a fire flared up at approximately 4 : 40 PM in a scrap bin under one of the cutter 's tables at the northeast corner of the eighth floor . The first fire alarm was sent at 4 : 45 PM by a passerby on Washington Place who saw smoke coming from the eighth floor . Both owners of the factory were in attendance and had invited their children to the factory on that afternoon . The Fire Marshal concluded that the likely cause of the fire was the disposal of an unextinguished match or cigarette butt in the scrap bin , which held two months ' worth of accumulated cuttings by the time of the fire . Beneath the table in the wooden bin were hundreds of pounds of scraps which were left over from the several thousand shirtwaists that had been cut at that table . The scraps piled up from the last time the bin was emptied , coupled with the hanging fabrics that surrounded it ; the steel trim was the only thing that was not highly flammable . Although smoking was banned in the factory , cutters were known to sneak cigarettes , exhaling the smoke through their lapels to avoid detection . A New York Times article suggested that the fire may have been started by the engines running the sewing machines . A series of articles in Collier 's noted a pattern of arson among certain sectors of the garment industry whenever their particular product fell out of fashion or had excess inventory in order to collect insurance . The Insurance Monitor , a leading industry journal , observed that shirtwaists had recently fallen out of fashion , and that insurance for manufacturers of them was `` fairly saturated with moral hazard . '' Although Blanck and Harris were known for having had four previous suspicious fires at their companies , arson was not suspected in this case . </P>
what caused the fire in the triangle shirtwaist factory
what caused the fire in the triangle shirtwaist factory
a fire flared up at approximately 4 : 40 PM in a scrap bin under one of the cutter 's tables at the northeast corner of the eighth floor
a fire flared up at approximately 4 : 40 PM in a scrap bin under one of the cutter 's tables at the northeast corner of the eighth floor