Today in Fire History 11/19

FIREFIGHTER HISTORY

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On 11/19/1984 a gas storage area explosion killed 334 and injured as many as 7,000 near Mexico City, Mexico in an industrial disaster in San Juanico. Caused by a series of massive explosions and fires at a liquid petroleum gas (LPG) tank farm. The explosion consumed around 11,000 m3, one-third of Mexico City's liquid petroleum gas supply, and destroyed the storage and distribution facility belonging to Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX). The plant consisted of 6 large spherical tanks (four holding 1,600 m3 and two holding 2,400 m3), 54 LPG storage tanks; and 48 smaller horizontal bullet-shaped tanks. The incident devastated the town of San Juan Ixhuatepec. A pipe ruptured during transfer operations that resulted in a plume of LPG that migrated to the west end waste-gas flare pit at 5:40 a.m. that exploded and burned, within 4 minutes the first tank underwent a Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion (BLEVE), and over the next hour, 12 more BLEVEs occurred along with several other small explosions.

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On 11/19/1901 a Trenton, New Jersey firefighter “was killed in a collapse while operating at a factory fire.”

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On 11/19/1943 a Richmond, Indiana firefighter died “while fighting a basement fire in a residence at 200 Northwest J. Street, he became overcome by smoke. He was transported to Reid Memorial Hospital where he later died.”

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On 11/19/1975 a Queens, New York (FDNY) firefighter died “while overhauling at an arson fire in the basement of a household goods discount store, he was killed, and several firefighters were injured, when they were caught in the explosion of aerosol insecticide cans. The firefighter died while en route to the hospital after inhaling a combination of poisonous fumes, natural gas, and carbon monoxide poisoning at the fire. A firefighter who ran out of the basement to get help for his downed brothers re-entered the basement after taking some oxygen and collapsed. He was removed and rushed to the hospital, where he died on December 8th as a result of inhaling the same mixture that killed the first firefighter. A total of nine other firefighters were also overcome. None of the men who were injured were wearing breathing apparatus, as the department policy at the time was that it was optional as determined by the company and or chief officer depending on the incident. This incident catalyzed having the policy changed making it mandatory to wear self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) at all structure fires.”

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On 11/19/1984 a Concordia, Kansas firefighter “died as a result of inhaling carbon monoxide. The firefighter had been working on a truck from the Cloud County Rural Fire Department No. 4 when he was overcome by the gas.”

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On 11/19/1951 in Chicago, Illinois a fire in the Norwood Hotel killed three and injured nine of the 213 registered guests. “Some occupants of the Norwood Hotel leaped from windows, and others were brought down ladders by firemen battling the blaze in freezing weather. Five persons who jumped from the top floor to a concrete sidewalk were seriously injured.”

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On 11/19/1934 two people were killed and four others injured in a gas-filled cellar explosion in Pampa, Texas after a match was lit in a gas-filled cellar.

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On 11/19/1909 a four-story building on the Mahala Block in Sandusky, Ohio was destroyed by fire, thirteen families were homeless, and seven businesses were ruined.

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On 11/19/1899 seven buildings were destroyed by fire in Wagoner, Oklahoma including the Saint Charles Hotel.

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On 11/19/1942 Soviet counterattack the Nazis at Stalingrad.

On 11/19/1831 James A. Garfield, the 20th President of the United States, was born near Cleveland, Ohio.

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On 11/19/1863 Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate -- we cannot consecrate -- we cannot hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”