Seeing a large building on fire, I had gone inside to see if I could find anyone. Walking into one room, I found a cardboard box about 15x10x5 centimeters which was filled with hot cinders. Obviously it was going to burn. I pulled out the drawer of a metal file cabinet, turned to someone standing nearby, and told them to pour the cinders in the metal drawer and carry them out of here.

As I began walking through the other rooms, I could sense that part of the ceiling, made of plaster board, was hot. As I walked into this room, I picked up a small pocket knife. I used the pocket knife to cut part of the plaster board and pull it back. I expected smoke to come out, but none did. So I stuck my head through the hole and looked around. I saw that I was looking at the attic. It was long. I hollered to see if anyone was up there. A small black boy hollered back that he was up there. I asked him if he was all right and he said he was. I asked him if he could get out and he said he could. He said his name was "Samson." I told him to get out of there immediately. He seemed reluctant at first, but finally said he would get out, and he began climbing down.

On the other side of me, I could see where the ceiling had caved in. I could also that that about 100 people were down on the next floor. They were all trying to put out the fire. Seeing that most of them were also black, I thought I must be in some kind of black tenement house.