Today in Fire History 10/12
On 10/12/1904 a Denver, Colorado firefighter “became the third firefighter to die as a result of the nitric acid spill and fire at the Denver Post etching room on September 20th. The firefighter was one of the first on the scene and he and the second firefighter to die entered the room with an extinguisher in an attempt to control the blaze. A 16-gallon container of nitric acid burst open in the etching room of the Denver Post. A fire ensued which was easily extinguished by the firefighters, who inhaled the fumes while fighting the fire. Besides the four firefighters killed, more than a dozen other firefighters were hospitalized with various stages of respiratory distress.”
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On 10/12/1911 a Chicago, Illinois firefighter died “while fighting a barn fire at 2627 Lincoln Avenue. He was electrocuted inside the burning barn when live electrical wires fell from the ceiling and coiled around his neck. He was transported to Alexian Brothers Hospital, but efforts to revive him were unsuccessful.”
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On 10/12/1941 a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania firefighter “died after collapsing at a barn fire on the Byberry Hospital grounds.”
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On 10/12/1941 while fighting “a brush fire on Japanski Island in Sitka, Alaska at the Sitka Naval Air Station, enveloped a warehouse containing 21 tons of dynamite. The explosion killed five staffing the base fire engine and a Marine who was ? mile away was struck by a rock hurled from the blast site.?The fire engine was destroyed.
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On 10/12/1947 a Burlington, Iowa firefighter “died while operating at a fire at the Burlington Fruit Company. He was following the hose back out when he got turned around a loop in the hose and could not find his way out.”
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On 10/12/1998, while attempting a rescue, “two Saint Louis Missouri firefighters became disoriented in a smoke-charged hallway on the 21st floor of a high-rise apartment building, ran out of air, and one of the two firefighters (Captain of Engine 17) came close to death in this incident. The fire started in the apartment of an elderly woman and was reported as originating from an electrical cause or smoking in bed. The fire started shortly after 9:00 a.m., and the resident unsuccessfully attempted to extinguish the fire with glasses of water for a period of time. She then called the front desk, reported the fire and exited the apartment, leaving the door open, and took the elevator to the lobby. By the time the fire department arrived, the entire hallway on the 21st floor was fully charged with thick black smoke, and the fire had escalated, breaking out the apartment windows and allowing the wind to blow the apartment door shut. Three oxygen bottles in the apartment, for the resident’s use, accelerated the fire growth when they exploded. The Council Tower Apartments Building is located at 310 South Grand in Saint Louis, Missouri, and was built in 1969 to house the elderly. It is part of a three-building complex that included a similar high-rise building and a large parking structure. The 27-story structure is constructed of Type I fire-resistive materials consisting of poured concrete reinforced with steel. The building has a flat room, a full basement, and contains 150 apartments. Approximately 160 people were living in the building at the time of the fire. The floor plan is similar on floors two through twenty-seven and has a single hallway on each floor that is oriented east to west. There is an enclosed stairwell at each end. The east stairwell could be entered from the lobby, extended from the basement to the roof, and had an exterior exit door located at the ground level. The west stairwell extended from the basement to the roof and had an exterior ground-level exit, but could not be entered from the lobby. Two passenger elevators and a freight elevator were located off the north side of the hallway. During a fire, the elevators are programmed to automatically return to the lobby. The exterior apartment doors were solid core pressed composition with a laminated finish and the interior apartment doors are hollow core. The floors are concrete covered by either carpet or vinyl tile. The ceilings are poured concrete with a mortar acoustic finish. Single-glazed tempered glass windows spanned the length of the exterior rooms. The interior walls are constructed of gypsum board that is screwed onto metal studs and the walls in the hallway had wallpaper that had been painted. The building is equipped with a voice evacuation system and speakers are located on the south wall in each hallway. There is emergency lighting and a pull station is located at each stairwell exit. The smoke detectors in the hallways are hard-wired and monitored by an alarm company. A simplex alarm panel that displayed the various alarm zones is located in the lobby near the northwest corner of the building. Each apartment is also equipped with a battery-powered smoke detector. The building is equipped with a partial sprinkler system that protects the basement, trash chute, and elevator penthouse located on the top floor. The sprinkler system is interconnected to the standpipe system. The standpipe system consists of two risers located at the east and west end of the building. A hose cabinet with a 1-?-inch connection, a 1-?-inch connection, and a fire extinguisher was located adjacent to the doors at each of the stairwells in the interior of the hallway. The two cabinets are 117 feet apart and the standpipe system is supported by a 1,000 GPM fire pump powered by a 100 hp electric motor. The fire department connection is located on the west side of the building.”
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On 10/12/2015 a two-alarm apartment fire at 2608 Independence Avenue Kansas City (Missouri) killed two firefighters and injured two others when a wall on the east side of the building collapsed. Units were dispatched at 7:27 p.m. to a building fire that escalated to a second alarm shortly after arrival. An evacuation was ordered at 7:52 p.m. and at approximately 8:07 p.m., the wall collapsed. Two MAYDAY calls were received and the rapid intervention team (RIT) was ordered to affect the rescue. “The first ambulance transporting a firefighter departed the scene at approximately 8:13, arriving at Truman Medical Center (TMC) approximately five minutes later.?A second emergency transport left the scene at approximately 8:21 with arrival at TMC five minutes following.” Both those firefighters were pronounced dead at the hospital. Two other firefighters were transported to local hospitals.
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On 10/12/2002 a bomb was detonated in a nightclub that killed 180 and injured more than 300 in Bali, Indonesia.
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On 10/12/1918 Cloquet Minnesota and 25 other communities were destroyed by forest fires, 559 died; over 1,500 square miles burned, and 11,382 families were displaced.
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On 10/12/1912 in Syracuse, New York the State Fair Grounds were destroyed by a fire.
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On 10/12/1911 an oil refinery was destroyed by fire in Franklin, Pennsylvania.
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On 10/12/1865 the Belfast, Maine conflagration started accidentally around 11:00 p.m. in a boat shop at the head of Lewis' Wharf and the foot of Main Street. “The fire raged most fearfully for eight hours when it was checked by the pulling down and blowing up of buildings in nearly every street.” “Most of the buildings destroyed were of wood.”
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On 10/12/2000 the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Cole was deliberately attacked by terrorists in a small boat loaded with explosives, seventeen died, and the ship was heavily damaged off the coast of Aden, Yemen.
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On 10/12/1870 CSA General, Robert Edward Lee died at his home in Lexington Virginia.
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On 10/12/1810 the origin of Oktoberfest started after the Bavarian Crown Prince Louis (later King Louis I of Bavaria) married Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen.
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On 10/12/1492 Christopher Columbus, an Italian explorer, who on this day sighted Watling Island in the Bahamas; believing he had found Asia while attempting to find a Western ocean route to India. He claimed the land for Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain.?