nected with the fire, overshadows the mere
fact that there was a fire and makes it advisable to begin the story of
the fire with the fact or incident of unusual interest. Furthermore, in
each of these stories the unusual feature in the story is a direct
answer to one of the reader's questions--_when?_ _where?_ _how?_ _what?_
_why?_ _who?_ In other words, the reporter in answering these questions,
as he must in the lead of every story, finds the answer to one question
so much more interesting than the answer to any of the other questions
that he puts it first. In every fire story, however, the feature is not
so easily discovered.

B. FEATURES IN UNEXPECTED ATTENDANT CIRCUMSTANCES

There are other things in the day's fire stories, besides the answers to
the reader's questions, that may overshadow the rest of the story and
deserve to be featured. Very often there are unexpected attendant
circumstances occurring simultaneously with the fire or resulting from
the fire to command our interest. Perhaps a number of people are killed
or injured; then we want to know about them first, and the reporter
neglects to answer our questions for the moment while he tells us the
startling attendant circumstances that we had not expected. Even so,
while giving first place to the feature, he does not forget our
questions but answers them in the same sentence. Hence the introduction
of a fire story with significant attendant circumstances begins with the
startling fact resulting from the fire and then goes on to answer the
reader's questions--in the same sentence.

This is not so difficult as it may sound. Suppose that when John Jones's
house burns there is a stiff breeze blowing and the chances are that all
the other houses in the block will go with it. All of his neighbors
become frightened and work with feverish haste to move their household
goods out into the street. In the end the fire department succeeds in
confining the fire to Mr. Jones's house and his neighbors promptly carry
their chattels back indoors thanking the god of good luck. Now the mere
fact that John Jones's house burned down is rather insignificant beside
the fact that a dozen families were driven from their homes by the fire.
Therefore the reporter would begin thus:

| Twelve families were driven from their |
|homes by a fire which destroyed the |
|residence of John H. Jones, 78 Liberty |
|street, at 11 o