Today in Fire History 12/17

On 12/17/1953 in Chicago, Illinois the Reliance Hotel fire, 1702 West Madison, 3-11 alarm, left five firefighters and a civilian dead. “A discharged mental patient and five firefighters, including a battalion commander, were killed when the fire turned a 65-year-old Skid Row hotel into a crumbling death trap. The six dead were crushed beneath collapsing timbers and bricks of the Reliance Hotel. Twenty-eight firefighters were buried, many for more than 13 hours in near-zero weather. The wind was out of the west at ten to fifteen miles per hour, and the temperature stood right around ten degrees as over two-dozen firefighters searched the second floor’s 17 rooms and the third floor’s 28 rooms.?Five firefighters were on the roof of the structure when a portion of the building collapsed.?The men on the roof rode the debris down into the building; those on the second and third floors were trapped in the wreckage. After more than six hours as another wall tilted precariously over the rescue effort and hope dwindled, the Assistant Fire Commissioner ordered all of his men to leave the wreckage and a crane was brought in to search for two firefighters who remained missing.?Shortly after the order, a portion of the third floor tumbled into the basement. Some men were able to free themselves as frantic firefighters worked most of the day in frigid temperatures to free those who were trapped in the debris. All but five were saved. John Tybor, a 45-year-old hotel resident, had been released from Manteno State Hospital only Wednesday and a note found with his body launched a probe of possible arson.” The note read: "I'm really crazy. I killed 15 people only. I also set fire to 12 apartment buildings, not to mention all the girls I raped."

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On 12/17/1961 the Gran Circus Americano fire killed 323 and at least 500 more people were seriously injured in Niteroi, Brazil, across the bay from Rio de Janeiro, when the circus tent occupied by 2,500 people caught fire. “A fire at a circus in Brazil killed more than 300 people and severely burns hundreds more. The cause of the fire was never conclusively determined but it may have been the result of sparks from a train passing nearby. Spirits were high for the 2,500 in attendance at the Gran Circo Norte Americano, the Brazilian version of America’s Ringling Brothers. The large blue-and-white tent was set up across the bay from Rio de Janeiro and was filled to capacity. All seemed to be proceeding as planned when disaster struck suddenly. Antonietta Estavanovich, a trapeze artist, was the first to see the flames. From her high perch, she could see the roof of the tent beginning to burn. As the crowd became aware of the fire, pandemonium ensued and people were trampled as they tried to exit. In one reported instance, a Boy Scout attending the circus pulled out a knife, cut a hole in the tent and managed to get his family out safely. Hundreds of others, though, were not so lucky–323 people, many of them children, died in the fire. At least 500 more people were seriously injured, from burns, smoke inhalation and trampling.”

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On 12/17/1877 a Chicago, Illinois firefighter died from injuries he received “on November 14, 1877, when three Chicago Fire Department firefighters were fatally injured in the line of duty while fighting a commercial fire at the Field, Leiter & Company, a department store (the predecessor to Marshal Field & Company) located at State and Washington Streets. The fire started in an unusual, partial attic space between the building’s fifth floor and the roof, where another fire had started four years earlier. Firefighters arrived on the scene shortly after 8:00 p.m. It was so difficult to access the attic space, the roof and upper two floors of the buildings were filled with flames by 9:00 p.m. Eventually, firefighters and hose lines were positioned on the second and third floors of the building, with fire streams aimed up elevator shafts to the flames on the upper stories. When a portion of the upper floors gave way, a number of these firefighters were caught in a structural collapse.”

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On 12/17/1855 a London, Ontario, Canada firefighter “burned to death after becoming trapped in the basement after the chimney collapsed at Arthur Vennor’s House on Talbot Street.”

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On 12/17/1899 a Duluth, Minnesota firefighter was killed and two other firefighters were injured when they were caught under a collapsing wall while operating at a major fire in a four-story brick shoe factory.

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On 12/17/1921 a Kankakee, Illinois firefighter died while working in the basement on North Greenwood Ave. at 6:25 a.m. “Two fire companies that responded found a burning barrel of paper and kindling near the basement furnace. Firefighters deployed an eight-gallon chemical fire extinguisher by connecting it to a house line that ran through a window and down to a firefighter inside the basement. When the valve was turned on the extinguisher to release the chemicals, the copper tank exploded with tremendous force. The extinguisher tank struck the firefighter in the head and torso as it shot several feet up into the air, and he was killed instantly.”

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On 12/17/1960 three Louisville, Kentucky firefighters were killed in the late evening hours during a fire in a recreation center. “The building housed a 40-lane bowling alley, a bar & grill, a nightclub, and a coffee shop. Employees unsuccessfully tried to fight the three-alarm blaze themselves before calling the fire department, resulting in a delayed alarm. While firefighters were attempting an interior attack, conditions rapidly deteriorated and a backdraft occurred, trapping three firefighters in the inferno. One firefighter died from smoke inhalation and two were later found in the rubble under the collapsed roof.”

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On 12/17/1974 a Biloxi, Mississippi firefighter “died in a fire at 847 Elmer Street. Three adults and two children were able to escape the fire which destroyed the one-and-one-half story, wood-frame house.”

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On 12/17/1975 a Helena, Arkansas firefighter “died of the injuries he sustained while operating at a fire at the Jordan Funeral Home.”

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On 12/17/2000 a Southold, New York firefighter died after he “and members of his department responded to a report of a structural fire. As the firefighter advanced a hoseline toward a fully-involved detached two-car garage, he collapsed. Other firefighters came to his aid immediately and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) was started. Advanced life support (ALS) care and transport to the hospital were provided by members of the Southold Fire Department. The firefighter was pronounced dead approximately one hour later at a local hospital.

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On 12/17/1985 the Rocky Mountain Natural Gas Company in Glenwood Springs, Colorado propane tank explosion and fire leveled a two-story building that killed eleven and injured thirteen. A welding operation near an “empty” 1,000-gallon propane tank apparently triggered the blast in the garage where repairs were done.

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On 12/17/1940 a woman, her two children, and two nieces died in Mineral Point, Cambria County, Pennsylvania, in a two-family house fire, all were trapped on the second floor of the seven-room frame home.

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On 12/17/1910 Farnsworth Hall at Vermont Academy was destroyed by a fire of unknown cause in Saxtons River, Vermont, that spread rapidly helped by a strong wind the entire structure was consumed within an hour.

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On 12/17/1883 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin “at 6 o'clock in the evening, just a moment before the supper hour, a fire was discovered in the dry-room at the Plankinton House, and as soon as the alarm was given the wildest excitement prevailed. The fact that the Newhall House was burned less than a year ago, (January 10 last,) by which fire 100 people were roasted to death, tended to make the people more panicky, and for the time being Milwaukeeans supposed pretty much the same kind of a tragedy was about to be enacted. There were between 300 and 400 guests in the house, the only hotel of any pretense in the town at present. As soon as the news spread that the hotel was in flames, the guests became panic-stricken and began leaving the house in all possible haste. People rolled down the stairways and out into the street in whatever they happened to have on, and as many ladies were making their toilets for supper numbers left the building in very slight attire. The fire originated in the drying room, and such headway was gained before it was discovered that the entire basement was filled with suffocating smoke as soon as the doors of this department were broken open. Seven girls were prostrated and were carried out as if dead. Mary Quinlan, who barely escaped from the Newhall House, was seriously injured, perhaps fatally. The volumes of smoke overpowered the firefighters, and five were suffocated and had to be carried out. All of them revived after an hour or so.”

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On 12/17/1880 a wallpaper factory fire in Buffalo, New York killed ten in W. H. Bridge & Son's wallpaper factory. The fire started around 6:00 p.m. and was discovered just before work stopped. “Within fifteen minutes the large five-story building was a sheet of flames and in half an hour the building was level to the ground. The firm employed eighty men and two hundred boys, and the factory was one of the largest in the country.” The fire communicated and destroyed Manning's Queen City malt house, a brick building, and the engine house of fire steamer No. 10; several stores, and contents, were damaged.

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On 12/17/1968 in Tarpon Springs, Florida a bridge collapsed and killed one; a sinkhole may have caused the collapse.

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On 12/17/1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright made the 1st airplane flight near Kitty Hawk, North Carolinia.