DALLAS

Photo: Portal of Texas History
On  July 23, 1961. Dallas fire crews contended with a major blaze at the corner of Elm and Lamar streets.

HOLLAND TUNNEL, NEW YORK

Photo: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
On Friday, May 13, 1949, a truck hauling 80 drums of a restricted chemical from Jersey City to Manhattan triggered a blaze inside the Holland Tunnel that blistered the tiled interior of the Hudson River crossing. The freak fire injured more than 60 people and led to the death three months later of a New York City Battalion Chief Gunther E. Beake, who was overcome by smoke and chemical fumes.

ODD FELLOWS, COLUMBUS, OHIO

Photo: Courtesy of the estate of Henry Frank Moler
Five members of the Columbus (Ohio) Fire Division died Feb. 19, 1936 when a wall collapsed at a fire at the Odd Fellows Temple - one of the largest losses of firefighters in Ohio history. The fire apparently started at the furnace. The building was located on the corner of High and Rich streets.

SPRINGFIELD, OHIO

Photo: Springfield Fire Division

Loyal Dalmatian ready to roll aboard Truck 1 at Fire Headquarters in Springfield, Ohio, circa 1950s. "In the days of horse-drawn fire engines, dogs would guard the horses, who could easily become uncomfortable at the scene of a fire," according to Wikipedia. "Dalmatians were a popular breed for this job, due to their natural affinity to horses and history of being used as carriage dogs."

MUSKEGON, MICHIGAN

Muskegon, Michigan, firefighters manning the pump at three-alarm blaze at Drelles Restaurant and Cocktail Bar on Jan. 21, 1963.

MILLARD HOTEL, OMAHA

Omaha's Millard Hotel was the scene of a deadly fire on the night of Feb. 8, 1933 that claimed the lives of seven firefighters.

"About 11 p.m., parts of the roof and upper floors collapsed, possibly due to an explosion in the hotel’s paint shop, and the outer north wall blew outward," the Omaha World Herald said in a 2018 recollection.

"Firemen on ladders and in the alley were crushed by a searing hot blast of bricks and debris," the newspaper said.

The United Press reported: "Captain George Cogan, brother of Fire Chief Patrick Cogan, was rescued after he had lain pinned under a girder for six hours."

The hotel was built in the 19th Century.

REFORM SCHOOL, ARKANSAS

Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus spoke in anger after fire claimed 21 lives at a state reform school on March 5, 1959.

"There's absolutely no reason for this to happen the way it did except because of negligence on the part of someone," Faubus fumed.

Mesh covered windows at the Arkansas Negro Boys Industrial School in Wrightsville. The school had no fire alarm system, no telephone - and no adult supervision at nighttime. The inmates lived in squalor.

Bodies of 12 of the victims "were heaped below a window they couldn't open," the United Press reported. "Nine other boys were sprawled in ashes that once was a U-shaped brick veneer dormitory building."

As appalling a sight as it was, there's reason to believe Faubus was trying to shift blame as he had visited the school before the fire.

A 1956 report by sociologist Gordon Morgan documented the school's problems, according the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

Morgan said:  “Many boys go for days with only rags for clothes. More than half of them wear neither socks nor underwear during [the winter] of 1955–56….[It is] not uncommon to see youths going for weeks without bathing or changing clothes.”

“All buildings…are in need of extensive repairs, particularly the boys’ living quarters,” Morgan said.

CHURCH BLAST, SOUTH DAKOTA

A propane explosion ripped though Saint Mary's Catholic Church in Marion, South Dakota, just before Sunday mass April 10, 1949, killing six people and injuring about 50 others. 

The Daily Republic of Mitchell, South Dakota, reported: "The blast sent the floor ceiling-ward, pushed out the thick tile and brick walls and let the heavy roof tumble to the floor."

Authorities attributed the blast to "a gas leak in an almost new propane gas furnace and an arcing spark from an electrical connection," the newspaper said.

A parish member driving to the church said: "I saw a big puff of what looked like steam. The roof seemed to lift a little. Then when I looked again it wasn't there."

HOTELS, PALM BEACH

1925

Palm Beach, Fla., March 18 (Associated Press) - Fire which for a time threatened to wipe out an entire section of this famous winter pleasure resort, was brought under control Wednesday night after two big hotels, the Breakers and Palm Beach, had been reduced to piles of glowing ashes. 

COUNTY JAIL, NEW HAVEN

On April 13, 1910, a fire that started in the shops of the county jail in New Haven, Connecticut, killed six firefighters.

Many others - firefighters and at least one civilian - were burned or injured.

On the 100th Anniversary of the fire, the New Haven Register said the doomed firefighters were trapped by metal doors and barred windows.

A contemporary report in the Portsmouth Herald, a New Hampshire newspaper, described the jail shops as "wooden structure very old and rambling in design" and said flames "engulfed several buildings almost before the fire apparatus arrived."

GRAY BUILDING, LOS ANGELES

On Nov. 6, 1939, a spectacular fire at the five-story Gray Building in Los Angeles claimed the lives of two city firefighters. Joseph Kacl of Truck Company 3 died when a floor collapsed, and on Dec. 11 John C. Hough of Engine Company 3 succumbed to injuries sustained while attempting to rescue Kacl.

NEWHALL HOTEL, MILWAUKEE

Milwaukee's Newhall Hotel, a once elegant lodging that fell into disrepair, burst into flames on Jan. 10, 1883, claiming about 70 lives.

The hotel, also called Newhall House, had been the site of lesser fires before its incineration, and firefighters considered it a fire trap.

The final blaze was discovered at about 4 a.m. as flames mushroomed up its open elevator shaft, trapping residents in their rooms and hallways. People in windows jumped or collapsed into the flames. Others suffocated.

A contemporary account published in the Fort Wayne Daily Sentinel, an Indiana newspaper, said that "exit by way of the roof was cut off by the fire and the two stand pipes with fire ladders were not available for the same reason."

The newspaper hailed firefighters for "a superhuman effort." In one rescue, "waiter girls were brought safely across frail ladders stretched over the alley from the sixth story of the hotel to the roof of the adjoining bank building," it said.

The traveling circus performer Tom Thumb and his wife were rescued by ladder, according to one account, in the arms of a single firefighter. Another account said a police officer carried Mrs. Thumb while Tom Thumb descended on his own.

A Jan. 23 inquest found the hotel owners guilty of culpable negligence for lacking adequate exterior fire escapes and failing to employ an adequate number of night watchmen, according to an 1883 report entitled Burning of the Newhall House.

The watchman and hotel clerk on duty "obeying previous instructions of the proprietors, lost valuable time in useless attempts to extinguish the fire and to arouse the inmate,'' the inquest said.

They also lost time hailing the Milwaukee Fire Department, which received  a telephone alarm from the night clerk at 4:05 a.m. followed by a signal from a street alarm box - Box 15 - at 4:08 a.m. and a general alarm from the same street box at 4:15 a.m.

HOSPITAL FIRE, ILLINOIS

On April 4, 1949, flames roared through the halls of the old St. Anthony's Hospital in Effingham, Illinois, killing 74 people.

There were many acts of heroism on the part of the hospital staff.

Nurse Fern Riley, 22, was on duty in the hospital nursery. "My babies! I've got to stay with my babies!" she shouted. Fern died along with 12 newborns.

According to Wikipedia:

``The 100-bed hospital was constructed mainly out of wood and brick. Parts of the building dated back to 1876. By 1949 the facility was completely outdated. 

``It contained open corridors and staircases. Many walls and ceilings were covered with oilcloth fabrics and combustible soundproof tiles.  The building lacked sprinklers as well as fire detection and alarm systems.''

The United Press reported: ``The flames leaped upward and turned the haven of  mercy into a blazing death trap before bedridden patients on the upper floors could make their escape.''

Fire Hero: Fern Riley's grave in March 2019

It was shortly before midnight when, according to the Journal of the National Fire Protection Association, a nun rang the hospital's telephone operator to report a fire in the basement.

The operator phoned hospital engineer Frank Ries at home and alerted the Effingham Fire Department.

Ries hurried to the hospital and trained a fire extinguisher on a laundry chute.  His assault failed and he died in the blaze.

Flames were roaring through the roof by the time the first Effingham firefighters arrived and they focused their efforts on rescue.

Twenty minutes later, crews finally got water on the blaze.

Of the dead, 20 were hospital staffers who gave their lives to save others.

The apparatus answering the alarm that night consisted of Effingham's meager force of three engines along with five rigs from neighboring fire departments.

BOMBING, LOS ANGELES

Photo: lafire.com

On Oct. 1, 1910, a bomb leveled The Los Angeles Times building, killing 21 people and injuring 100 others. The device, consisting of 16 sticks of dynamite and an alarm clock, was the work of  J.B. McNamara as part of a radical bombing campaign.

OUR LADY OF ANGELS, CHICAGO

On Dec. 1, 1958, a fire at Our Lady of the Angels school in Chicago killed 92 students and three nuns. The school had just one fire escape, no sprinklers and no fire doors - and yet it was in compliance with fire regulations. The disaster led to sweeping nationwide changes in fire regulations. It was symbolized in a photo on the cover of Life magazine showing firefighter Richard Scheidt carrying the body John Jajkowski, age 10.

...

(Editors Note - Tommy Raymond, 12, a seventh grader, was trapped for 20 minutes in his second floor classroom at Our Lady of the Angels School. Here is his story.)

By TOMMY RAYMOND
As Told To UPI

CHICAGO (UPI) - I hesitated on the window sill thinking about jumping - and how I would look dead - when firemen shouted to me to wait and they'd save me.

Most of my other classmates had got out and I was the last one. But when I walked into the hall the smoke was so thick I ran back into the room. I ran to a window in the room and threw some books out through the glass to break the window. It's funny, but I remember the books - my reader and some text books.

After the window broke I got on the sill and began thinking about jumping. That's when the firemen down below started shouting at me not to jump, but they'd come and get me. So I got back off the sill.

Now that I think back to when it started, I remember we were having a singing lesson. We didn't know anything about the fire until all of a sudden we heard a lot of screams. We couldn't make out what the screams were for a moment, then we knew it was the eighth graders yelling, "Fire, fire, fire."

We started leaving the room like we had practiced in fire drills. You know we had two or three fire drills already this winter because this is an old school and somebody always figured it was going to burn down some day.

For a while I was all by myself in the room and then some girls came running in. They were from another room. I yelled at them to lie down on the floor, because that's what I remember from fire drills to do when there's a lot of smoke.

The girls said kids from other rooms were hanging on one another's belts to form a line to get to the stairs because the smoke had made it as dark as night on the second floor. A man came running through the door and we could see flames on the other side of the building.

The man grabbed a few girls and led them back out with him.

But I stayed by the window, and I was scared. Then the firemen came up and led me down the ladder.

I'm sorry about all the others.

VALENTINE'S DAY, NYC

Photo: nyfd.com

On Valentine's Day 1958, four members of the New York City Fire Patrol and two members of the New York City Fire Department were killed in a building collapse in a section of Lower Manhattan called ``Hell's Hundred Acres.''

The incident was the deadliest in the fire patrol's history.

Box 66-334 for fire at 137-9 Wooster Street was transmitted at 10:15 p.m. and went to five alarms.

Flames extended thorough open shafts, gnawing at timber supports inside the six-story loft building, which stored paper bales.    

The men of Patrol 1 were spreading salvage covers and the firefighters from Ladder 1 and Ladder 10 were venting the roof when the structure gave way.

These are the names of the dead:

Sergeant Michael McGee, Patrol 1, married (according to the Associated Press)
Patrolman Louis Brusati, Patrol 1, married with two children
Patrolman James Devine, Patrol 1, married with two children
Patrolman Michael Tracey, Patrol 1, married three months

Firefighter Bernard Blumenthal, Ladder 10, married three weeks
Firefighter William Schmid, Ladder 1

In the search for their fallen comrades, patrolmen and firefighters contended with flare-ups from smoldering paper bales beneath the debris.

Less than a decade earlier, on Oct. 15, 1949, a building collapse on West 17th Street claimed the lives of  two patrolmen, Daniel Shea and Frederick Lehman.

CONFLAGRATION, CAMDEN, NJ

Photos: dvrbs.com

Camden, New Jersey, was the scene of a conflagration that devoured factories, homes and automobiles on July 30, 1940. Ten people died in the flames and a firefighter suffered a fatal heart attack.

Firefighters manned an estimated 28 hand lines with 1-inch or 1-1/8-inch tips, a ladder pipe with a 1 1/2-inch tip and three turret nozzles with 1 3/4-inch tips mounted on hose wagons at the height of the inferno, according to the NFPA Journal.

A series of explosions at the R.M. Hollingshead Corp. - which manufactured a variety of flammable liquids used in the auto industry as well as soap and insecticides - preceded the fire.

``The weather at the time of the fire was almost ideal for a conflagration,'' according to the NFPA Journal said. ``The temperature reached a peak of 94 degrees during the fire and averaged 85 degrees for the entire day. A fifteen to twenty-one mile per hour southwest wind was blowing.''

The United Press reported: ``Hoselines were stretched more than a quarter-mile to Cooper River where high-powered pumpers relayed water to the burning paint factory. Police cars were dispatched through the streets of this city of 120,000 with men on the running boards crying to householders to turn off their water so that the city's entire reserve could be placed at the disposal of the fire-fighters.''

Box 61 at 9th and Penn Streets was transmitted at 1:15 p.m. following the explosion. Box 184 at 11th and Cooper Streets was pulled two minutes later. A fourth alarm followed at 1:39 p.m., according to website dvrbs.com. Philadelphia sent Engines 8, 17, 21, 27, 33 as well as Trucks 9 and 23 after a call from Camden Mayor George Brunner. Philadelphia was using two-piece engine companies with hose wagons and pumpers in 1940. Other cities helped too.

ST GEORGE HOTEL, BROOKLYN

Photos: brooklynheightsblog.com

On Aug. 26, 1995, flames destroyed a vacant section of the St. George Hotel in Brooklyn - one of the biggest fires in New York City history.

More than 50 engine companies and 27 ladder companies responded - the equivalent of a 16-alarm blaze.

At the time of the blaze, the hotel consisted of nine buildings constructed between 1885 and 1933 and connected by basements.

Flames raced through shafts from the top down of the 10-story vacant section, extending to all floors and all exposures.

Aggravating the situation, the standpipe system had been vandalized.

Writing in Fire Engineering, Steven DeRosa, deputy assistant chief, described the scene: `` Huge embers the size of baseballs were rising over the fire area and falling into the street and onto roofs in the neighborhood. Hoselines were burned. The radiant heat was intense. ''  

The initial alarm, from Box 77-461, was transmitted at 3:33 a.m. for Engines 224, 207 and 226, Ladders 118 and 110 and Battalion 31.

The blaze was declared under control at 7:05 a.m.

Investigators charged a man scavenging for copper with starting the fire.

GARDEN STATE PARK, NEW JERSEY

Photo: Cherry Hill Fire Dept. Facebook page

On April 14, 1977, fire led to the collapse of the wooden grandstand at Garden State Park horse track in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, during a racing card. Even so, 11,000 people evacuated. Three people died. 

SODDER FAMILY, WEST VIRGINIA

On Christmas Eve 1945, fire destroyed the home of George Sodder, his wife Jennie and nine of their children in Fayetteville, West Virginia. The parents and four of the children escaped. Remains of the other children were never found, leading the Sodders to believe the missing children were kidnapped. They erected a billboard offering a reward for information. The mystery endures.