The Hartford Circus Fire, Connecticut’s Deadliest New England Disaster Hartford circus fire, New

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Connecticut had one of the deadliest fires in American history and it happened under a circus tent full of children.

[00:00:07]July 6th, 1944.

[00:00:10]Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus in Hartford. The tent caught fire. 167 people died, most of them kids, and it happened because the circus waterproofed the tent with gasoline and paraffin. Here's what went wrong. The circus tent was massive. Needed waterproofing. They used a mixture of paraffin wax dissolved in gasoline.

[00:00:35]Highly flammable. Everyone knew it. Fire marshals warned them. The circus didn't care. Cheaper than proper fireproofing.

[00:00:43]They'd been using it for years without incident. July 6th, 1944, afternoon show. 7,000 people inside. Mostly women and children because men were at work or overseas fighting World War II.

[00:00:58]Fire started. Probably a cigarette or electrical. The tent went up instantly.

[00:01:03]Flames spread across the gasoline-soaked canvas in seconds. Exits got blocked.

[00:01:09]People trampled each other. Bodies piled up at blocked exits. 167 dead. Over 700 injured. Bodies burned beyond recognition. Some victims were never identified. Connecticut created Little Miss 1565.

[00:01:26]An unidentified girl whose body nobody claimed. Took decades to maybe identify her. Ringling Bros. knew the tent was a death trap. Used flammable waterproofing anyway because it was cheap. After Hartford, they settled lawsuits and changed nothing about their business model. Corporate negligence killed 167 people, mostly children, and the circus kept operating for 73 more years.