With no efforts made to rouse the sleeping guests and residents of the Newhall, most were left to be woken by the fire itself. Many jolted awake from the smell of smoke or the dull roar of the flames taking hold of the elevator shaft. Others woke to the shattering of the glass transom windows above their doors. Several people on the fourth and fifth floors woke to screams and shouts from the halls, the noise of their fellow dwellers fleeing the building. Others offered no explanation as to how they were roused. They simply passed from sleep to terror without recalling any transition whatsoever.
Firefighters soon began to arrive at the scene – the corner of Michigan Street and Broadway. Hook-and-Ladder No. 1 member Herman Strauss did not like the way his foreman, Edward Reimer, ran things. By the night of the fire, Strauss’ distaste for the way Reimer and the rest of his department superiors conducted themselves had turned into outright disgust.