Look for this story on TheReporterOnline.com this weekend:

BOYERTOWN — Nearly 400 people were packed inside the opera house when all of them, all at once, tried to escape a blazing second-floor theater. Eleven-year-old Anna Weber dropped to her belly and began crawling through a tangle of legs. It was her only hope of getting out alive. The blaze, 100 years ago on Sunday, killed 170, devastating this small, thriving industrial town 40 miles northwest of Philadelphia. It ranks as one of the deadliest fires of the 20th century, worse than the better-known Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in New York three years later. And it helped usher in a slew of fire safety standards and building regulations that we take for granted today: Marked exits. Doors that open outward. Easily accessible fire escapes...