Famous Fires and The Lessons Learned
features
The Editor’s Opinion Page
Almost every sizable town—and some small ones—has a theater, a nightclub, a school, a hospital, a hotel and a few factories, all representing a heavy potential loss in life and property. These occupancies should be, and usually are, on the target-hazard list of every fire department. Unhappily all of them are on the list of famous fires and the lessons learned which make up our Pages From the Past in this issue.
Our reports on these fires have been taken from contemporary accounts, including those that appeared in Fire Engineering, plus the investigations that were later conducted. The fires took a dreadful toll in life and property, but particularly life.
If there is a common thread running through this fabric of horror, it is that the damage had been done before the arrival of the fire fighters. In fact, the damage had almost been foreordained prior to the occurrence of the fires.
Human greed was probably the biggest factor in the death toll. In the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, 145 young girls died, many of them because the exit doors were locked—to prevent pilferage. In the Cocoanut Grove fire, that killed 491 patrons, overcrowding played a major role.
- Flammable Decorations, Lack of Exits Create Tragedy at Cocoanut Grove
- 162 Lose Lives in Supper Club Fire
- Tragedy at School Made Others Safer
- Warning of Tragedy That Came True
- Triangle Shirtwaist Toll Of 145 Is Still Largest For U.S. Industrial Fires
Weak building codes played a part in a few of these frightful happenings. In some instances, however, the code was adequate, but code enforcement was lax. Still another factor was poor building design.
The hazard of unenclosed stairs had long been recognized prior to the fires in the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta (119 dead) and Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago (95 dead). Nevertheless this hazard contributed to the heavy loss of life.
Somebody once said that those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. It is sad, then, that while we were putting together the article on the 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire, another nightclub holocaust occurred in the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Ky. (162 dead). However, on the credit side, we find that there hasn’t been a major fire in a theater in this country since the Chicago Iroquois Theatre fire in 1903 which killed 602 persons.
With one exception, all of these famous fires (there are seven of them beginning on page 49) resulted in a heavy loss of life. And all occurred within this century; the first 74 years ago. The lessons learned from them, however, are still valid, and well worth a reading by today’s fire chief.
