Today in Fire History 3/21

3/21/1881 a Newark, NJ firefighter died while “he was fighting his first fire when he got separated from the rest of his company. He was found dead on the second floor due to smoke inhalation.”

3/21/1885 two Chicago, IL firefighters “died following a structural collapse during a fire at the Hotel Langham, located at the corner of Adams Street and Wabash Avenue. The fire started in the hotel basement and was discovered at around 6:45 p.m. Less than thirty minutes later, the five-story hotel was completely engulfed in flames and the roof collapsed. Around 8:00 p.m. the hotel’s south wall collapsed outward onto a pair of two-story commercial buildings that adjoined the hotel. Six members of the Chicago Fire Insurance Patrol were on the second floor of one of these buildings, and when the hotel’s wall tore through the building’s roof, they fell with the debris down to the first floor. Four of the patrol members were rescued from the wreckage.”

3/21/1889 a Detroit, MI firefighter “died from injuries he sustained after being caught under a floor that had collapsed.”

3/21/1901 a Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York (FDNY) firefighter died as a result of a building collapse. “The fire was discovered in the early morning. The large car barn, located at the foot of 65th Street belonged to the New York & Sea Beach Railroad Company. The building had been vacant for some three years and was in dilapidated condition. The men were ordered into the building and shortly afterwards the roof came down on them, trapping them. The victim and two members from Engine 201 and one from Engine 243 were taken to the Norwegian Hospital where he died several hours later of burns and broken bones.”

3/21/1932 two Springfield, IL firefighters were “fatally injured while fighting a fire at Springfield High School. One firefighter died from burn injuries on March 21, and the second succumbed to his burn injuries on April 7. Shortly before 8:00 p.m. on March 20, firefighters responded to an alarm for a fire at the school. Unaware that the fire involved an active gas leak, firefighters entered the school to locate the flames. When they opened a door between the boiler room and the gas meter room, the leaking gas ignited, causing an explosion that burned them and two other firefighters, three school employees, and two students. Two other explosions occurred during firefighting operations, injuring four other people, including one firefighter, and, on March 22, a school janitor died from burn injuries he received during the fire.”

3/21/1934 a Jacksonville, FL firefighter “was shot and killed while attempting to flag down a driver to keep him from running over a fire hose that was providing water to a house fire at Johnson and State Streets.”

3/21/1965 a Memphis, TN firefighter “was overcome and died of smoke inhalation after operating at a fire at the Owen Graham Salvage & Sundry Store, 1333 Madison Ave. Five other firemen were overcome by smoke and taken to area hospitals for treatment.”

3/21/1986 a Boston, MA firefighter “died of injuries he received when a wall collapsed in a burning 3-decker and hit a dead tree which fell on several firefighters and injured them, at 2-10 Mercer Street, South Boston. Nine-alarms were transmitted from Box 7413.  

3/21/2003 a Cincinnati, OH firefighter “was fatally injured in a flashover during a three-alarm house fire that was later determined to be caused by a meth lab. He and two other firefighters were on an interior attack crew and had just gone through the front door of a single-family residence. The hose line was uncharged, and the crew was calling for water when a flashover occurred. From the time the fire department arrived on scene until the flashover was approximately four minutes.”

3/21/2005 a Yellowknife, Canada firefighter died from injuries he received on March 17, 2005 a second firefighter lost his life on 3/17.  “The two firefighters were part of a crew called to a fire at a hardware store about 7:00 a.m. According to initial media reports they were inside with an attack line battling a fire in a shed attached to the store, where lumber was cut. Another crew was up on the snow-covered roof working at ventilation when the roof caved in on top of two firefighters. The firefighters who were on the roof when it collapsed managed to get out safely, and without serious injuries. Both firefighters were rescued from the shed and sent to hospital. One died that day of injuries sustained in the collapse. The second was seriously injured and placed on life support. He died Monday, March 21. The blaze did not spread to the store. Building owner told Global TV there were two electrical heaters in the roof of the shed. He said damage seemed to be concentrated in the shed’s ceiling. “It’s probably one of the heaters that might have caused it,”

3/21/2015 seven children; three girls ages 8, 12, 15; four boys ages 5, 6, 7 and 11; died and two others were critically injured in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, NY in a house fire that started from a hot plate in the kitchen that was being used to warm food around 12:23 a.m. There was a smoke detector in the basement but smoke detectors on the first and second floors of the home did not appear to be working report suggest.

3/21/2014 a Point Pleasant Beach, NJ fire at Mariner's Cover Motor Inn a wooden inn (motel) fire killed four and injured eight in Ocean County, NJ housing about forty people displaced by “Superstorm Sandy.” The fire started in a chair from an improperly discarded cigarette in an outdoor smoking lounge on the second floor. “The owner of Mariner’s Cove Motor Inn in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J. received complaints about missing smoke alarms just weeks before the motel caught fire.”

3/21/2011 two died and two were injured in an explosion and fire at chemical plant in Louisville (KY) Rubbertown neighborhood at the Carbide Industries plant, 4400 Bells Lane around 5:40 p.m. that involved calcium carbide.

3/21/2009 four children, two ten-year-old girls and two boys, eight and two, died in mobile home fire that had no working smoke alarms in St. Paris, OH.

3/21/1996 two arson fires in an occupied operational general merchandise warehouse in New Orleans, Louisiana resulted in the total destruction of the 1,134,770 square foot facility. A combination of 65-foot-high bay racks and 30-foot-high low bay racks was protected by 30 overhead and 17 in rack sprinkler systems supported by two 2,500 gpm fire pumps. The fire started in an area of non-sprinkled portable racks containing wicker baskets and plastic lawn chairs and spread to adjacent portable racks between 5:00 and 5:30 a.m. The overhead sprinkler system activated, but failed to control the fire. The five-alarm fire was extinguished by the fire department using an interior attack. Once fire was controlled all of the sprinkler systems were shut down. At approximately 2:00 p.m. a subsequent fire caused when electrical service was restored in the high rack storage area remote from the original fire broke out in the south-central portion of the building. Employees immediately began to turn on the sprinkler system, but it was unable to control fire that resulted in the total destruction of the warehouse and distribution area.

3/21/1995 at approximately 7:00 pm, a fire in a senior citizens home in Mississauga Canada a suburb of Toronto killed four residents and injured twelve others in a board and care facility.

3/21/1988 a fire at the Oakville Heath Care Center, a nursing home located at 3391 Old Getwell Road in Memphis, Tennessee, killed three and injured eighteen in the unsprinklered two-story fire-resistive building with 27 sleeping rooms housing seventy-three non-ambulatory patients and one ambulatory patient. The fire was held to the first-floor room of origin occupied by three patients; considerable smoke and toxic gases spread throughout the building. All patients, except for the three in the room of origin, were evacuated.

3/21/1983 a five-alarm fire at the Willow Creek Apartments in Dallas, Texas damaged 125 apartment units in six separate buildings of the 824 housing units in 64 buildings on a 42-acre site. The fire started in an unoccupied apartment from electrical wiring in an exterior wall spreading upward into the attic and advanced rapidly internally and externally. Flying brands from the untreated wood shingles carried by 15- to 20-mph winds spread the fire to other buildings. There was no loss of life from this fire.

3/21/1954 the Chicago, IL City Hall was heavily damaged by 5-11 alarm fire.

3/21/1934 a conflagration killed over 1,000 and destroyed over 30,000 homes and shops in Hakodate, Japan, after a storm blew down the chimney of a public bathhouse around 7:00 p.m. that quickly spread through the city for 12-? hours leaving 150,000 persons homeless.

3/21/1916 a fire destroyed approximately thirty blocks in Paris, Texas and “it is reported that from 10 to 30 persons have lost their lives” and left about 10,000 persons homeless. The fire started around 5:30 p.m. at the southwest city limits near the storage warehouse of S.J. Long on South 18th Street adjoining the Texas and Pacific Railway tracks. The fire was stopped the next day at 4:00 a.m.; about 1,440 buildings were destroyed.

3/21/1911 a fire burned one block of Staunton, VA.

3/21/1910 a New Ulm, MN five-story mill and several other structures were destroyed by fire.

3/21/1907 a large department store was totally destroyed by fire that badly damaged the bank building in Breckenridge, MN.

3/21/1904 the Deering Harvest Machine Company, a four-story warehouse on Railroad Avenue near Main Street, was destroyed by fire in East St. Louis, MO.

3/21/1898 a fire in Butte, MT at the Hale House on East Broadway, a large three-story brick lodging and boarding house used by miners of the Anaconda Company killed twenty of the 250 men and women in the building when the fire broke out.

3/21/1896 two died in a mine explosion at the Ohio & Pennsylvania mine, situated on the Baltimore & Ohio railroad in West Newton, PA.  

3/21/1886 three blocks including the opera house of the business section were destroyed by fire in the early morning that originated in a wholesale and retail grocery store in Helena, AR.

3/21/1788 a fire destroyed 856 buildings in New Orleans, Louisiana.

3/21/1963 Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco Bay (CA) closed-down and transferred the last prisoners  

3/21/1932 a series of tornadoes hits Southeast U.S. killed over 350  

3/21/1918 World War I the Second Battle of the Somme began.

3/21/1913 a flood in Ohio killed 400

3/21/1891 a Hatfield married a McCoy, ending a 20-year feud over an accusation of pig-stealing in West Virginia.

3/21/1864 the Civil War battle at Henderson's Hill (Bayou Rapids) Louisiana.

3/21/1778 the Massacre at Hancock's Bridge, British Loyalists and Hessian mercenary forces assault the local New Jersey militia.