Today in Fire History 3/11

On 3/11/1948 in Asheville, North Carolina a hospital fire claimed the lives of nine female patients including Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of author F. Scott Fitzgerald, in the four-story central building of the Highland Hospital for nervous diseases, a mental hospital that is believed to have started in the kitchen… Originally known as “Dr. Carroll’s Sanatorium,” Highland Hospital was founded by psychiatrist Dr. Robert S. Carroll and treated people with mental and nervous disorders and addictions. In 1939, Carroll gave his facility to the Neuropsychiatric Department of Duke University… The fire broke out in the kitchen area; an electric coffee urn was the source of the flames. The flames quickly traveled up the dumbwaiter shaft and spread throughout the entire building. While the facility had adequate fire escapes, the building did not have a sprinkler system. Firefighters were hampered in their rescue by “heavily screened porches and windows shackled with chains as a precautionary measure to keep patients from jumping out. It was the third fire in the hospital in less than a year.”

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On 3/11/1856 a District of Columbia (Washington D.C.) firefighter “died of the injuries he sustained after a wall had collapsed on him, while he was operating at a fire on 22nd Street.”

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On 3/11/1873 an Indianapolis, Indiana firefighter “was killed during a major fire at the Woodburn Sarven Wheel Works on Illinois Street. He was inside the building directing his men when a wall collapsed on him and several other firefighters. The other firefighters all survived.”

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On 3/11/1900 a Boston, Massachusetts firefighter died after a brick wall at a 3-alarm structure fire fell on him.

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On 3/11/1918 a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania firefighter “died from the injuries he sustained after a building had collapsed at 31st and Market Streets” at the Penn Grain and Feed Company. “A steel girder gave way and buried him and two other firefighters.”

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On 3/11/1927 two Chicago, Illinois “firefighters were fatally injured while fighting a basement fire at the Daigger Company chemical plant at 159 West Kinzie Street. The initial alarm that brought firefighters to the chemical plant was for a relatively small basement fire. The fire was quickly extinguished, and fire companies were preparing to leave when a large explosion occurred in the basement. More than thirty cans of ether had ignited and exploded, creating a wall of flames that trapped some firefighters in the basement. Fire companies on the scene were able to quickly rescue their injured colleagues, but two firefighters were too badly hurt to recover. Ten other firefighters suffered from burn and smoke inhalation injuries.”

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On 3/11/1935 a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania firefighter “died as a result of injuries sustained in a fall from a roof while operating at a two-alarm rowhouse fire on March 8th.”

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On 3/11/1944 two Cleveland, Ohio firefighters died while “Engine Company 20 was working a box assignment at the Cleveland Union Stockyards at 3200 West 65th Street. During the fire, a wall collapsed pinning the crew of Engine 20. Two firefighters were trapped and killed by the falling debris.”

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On 3/11/1961 a Los Angeles, California firefighter “died of burns from fall through the roof of a two-story commercial building fire at 1101 South Crenshaw Boulevard.”

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On 3/11/1972 a Syracuse, New York firefighter was killed when a roof collapsed while he was fighting a fire at 1074 Elk Street.

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On 3/11/1974 a Wakefield, Massachusetts firefighter “died of asphyxiation when he became separated from his company and ran out of air while working in the basement during a general-alarm fire in a large one-story brick taxpayer occupied by a row of stores.”

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On 3/11/1979 a Bethel Acres, Oklahoma firefighter died “while operating at a brush fire with two brush trucks in a farmer's field, five firefighters were caught between two lines of fire due to a sudden wind shift. The men attempted to outrun the fire with little success. The fire quickly overtook them in the foot-high grass, killing a firefighter and seriously burning two others. The other two firefighters received minor burns. Both rigs were heavily damaged.”

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On 3/11/1981 an Argyle, Wisconsin firefighter “was injured and died after a chimney collapsed on him. The fire had already been knocked down when the collapse occurred.”

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On 3/11/2015 a shopping mall fire and collapse in Kazan, Russia killed seventeen people, injured seventy, including three firefighters, and required over 650 people to be evacuated.

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On 3/11/2017 a fire that killed a toddler and critically injured two others, and also led to the death of a responding fire official, appears to have been sparked by a recharging hoverboard, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Fire officials in Harrisburg said one victim jumped from a second-floor porch roof to escape the blaze, which was reported shortly before 8:00 p.m. Friday. Two other females were rescued by ladder from the ground, as was a man. The Lehigh County coroner’s office said 3-year-old Ashanti Hughes was pronounced dead just after 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest. Two girls remained hospitalized in critical condition. The man and another occupant of the home, a teenage male, were treated and released. The fire was ruled accidental and attributed to a hoverboard plugged in to recharge on the first floor, where family members were also present. “They heard some sizzling and crackling in the hoverboard and shortly thereafter, it exploded in flames.”

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On 3/11/2014 fire caused quarter-billion-dollar damage to an apartment complex under construction near China Basin in San Francisco, California. The five-alarm Mission Bay deployed the rarely used emergency backup water supply system when the regular water system could not provide enough water pressure for 90 fire engines and trucks; the high-pressure emergency fire hydrants system, fed by gravity from a 10.5 million gallon and 750,000-gallon water tanks dates to 1913, eventually gave firefighters enough water to control the fire.

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On 3/11/1975 two fires on separate floors in the University Tower Hotel, Seattle, Washington, likely the work of an arsonist allowed smoke and fire to fill an interior exit-way through an open stairway at the mezzanine level.

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On 3/11/1966 a ski resort fire killed thirty-one in Numata, Japan.

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On 3/11/1907 in Metuchen, New Jersey a locomotive engine boiler explosion killed two on the Pennsylvania railroad.

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On 3/11/2011 an undersea magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, Japan the epicenter was located approximately 43 miles east of the Oshika Peninsula, triggered tsunami waves, that reached heights of up to 133 feet in Miyako; in addition to 18,540 dead, the destruction of infrastructure, the tsunami caused several nuclear accidents, in 3 reactors at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant complex.

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On 3/11/2004 four train stations were bombed by ten separate devices that killed 191 and wounded 1,800 in Madrid, Spain during the morning rush hour. The attacks were directed by a Muslim al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist cell.

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On 3/11/1978 a terrorist attacked a mail truck in Tel Aviv that killed forty-five.

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On 3/11/1977 Moslem extremists held 130 hostages in Washington D.C.

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On 3/11/1918 the 1st cases were reported in the deadly influenza epidemic that would eventually kill 675,000? Americans and more than 20 million people worldwide. In 1918, the United States population was 105 million, by comparison, the approximate 2020 (current) population of the U.S. is 333 million; deaths from COVID-19 are estimated at 962,000 (00.3% population). The influenza epidemic killed around 00.6% of the U.S. population.?

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On 3/11/1943 in Lutz, Florida a bomber crash killed a five-man aircrew.

On 3/11/1942 General MacArthur fled Corregidor during World War II.

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On 3/11/1888 the Great Blizzard of '88 hit the East Coast dumping as much as 55 inches of snow on the Northeast killing more than 400 people.

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On 3/11/1884 gunslinger Ben Thompson died in an ambush in San Antonio, Texas.

On 3/11/1865 Union forces under the command of General Sherman occupied Fayetteville, North Carolina during the Civil War.

On 3/11/1864 during the Civil War a skirmish at Calfkiller Creek (Sparta), Tennessee was fought.

On 3/11/1861 in Montgomery, Alabama delegates from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas adopted the Permanent Constitution of the Confederate States of America.

On 3/11/1824 the U.S. War Department created the Bureau of Indian Affairs.