Today in Fire History 4/19

On 4/19/1995 The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma bombing killed 168 and left over 800 injured after a Ryder truck containing 5,000 pounds of fertilizer and nitromethane mixture detonated. A massive rescue operation that continued over 17 days and involved eleven task forces, USAR Teams, and an Incident Management Team was mounted by the Oklahoma City Fire Department. “The blast destroyed or damaged 324 other buildings within a 16-block radius, shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings, and destroyed or burned 86 cars, causing an estimated $652 million worth of damage… At 9:02 a.m. (14:02 UTC), the Ryder truck, containing over 4,800 pounds (2,200 kg) of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, nitromethane, and diesel fuel mixture, detonated in front of the north side of the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. One-third of the building was destroyed by the explosion, which created a 30-foot-wide (9.1 m), 8-foot-deep (2.4 m) crater on NW 5th Street next to the building. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a 4-block radius, and shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings. The broken glass alone accounted for 5 percent of the deaths total and 69 percent of the injuries outside the Murrah Federal Building. The destruction of the buildings left several hundred people homeless and shut down several offices in downtown Oklahoma City. The effects of the blast were equivalent to over 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) of TNT and could be heard and felt up to 55 miles (89 km) away. Seismometers at the Omniplex Science Museum in Oklahoma City, 4.3 miles (6.9 km) away, and in Norman, Oklahoma, 16.1 miles (25.9 km) away, recorded the blast as measuring approximately 3.0 on the Richter magnitude scale. The collapse of the northern half of the building took roughly 7 seconds. As the truck exploded, it first destroyed the column next to it, designated as G20, and shattered the entire glass facade of the building. The shockwave of the explosion forced the lower floors upwards before the fourth and fifth floors collapsed onto the third floor, which housed a transfer beam that ran the length of the building and was supported by four pillars below and was supporting the pillars that held the upper floors. The added weight meant that the third floor gave way along with the transfer beam, which in turn caused the collapse of the building.”

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On 4/19/1993, the Branch Davidian Seventh-Day Adventist Church, a religious group complex fire killed forty-seven near Waco, Texas ending a 51-day standoff between the federal government and an armed religious cult. “On February 28, 1993, at 4:20 a.m., the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms attempted to execute a search warrant relating to alleged sexual abuse charges and illegal weapons violations. The ATF attempted to breach the compound for approximately two hours until their ammunition ran low. Four ATF agents were killed, and another 16 agents were wounded during the raid. Five Branch Davidians were killed in the 9:45 a.m. raid. On April 19, 1993, the FBI moved for a final siege of the compound using large weaponry such as .50 caliber (12.7 mm) rifles and armored Combat Engineering Vehicles (CEV) to combat the heavily armed Branch Davidians. The FBI attempted to use tear gas to flush out the Branch Davidians. Officially, FBI agents were only permitted to return any incoming fire, not to actively assault the Branch Davidians. When several Branch Davidians opened fire, the FBI's response was to increase the amount of gas being used. Around noon, three fires broke out simultaneously in different parts of the building. The government maintains that the fires were deliberately started by Branch Davidians. Some Branch Davidian survivors maintain that the fires were started either accidentally or deliberately by the assault. Of the 85 Branch Davidians in the compound when the final siege began, 76 died. The siege had lasted 51 days.”

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On 4/19/2019 eight firefighters were injured in an explosion at an Arizona Public Service (APS) facility in Surprise. “Four Peoria, Arizona firefighters were the most seriously hurt, three flown to Maricopa County Medical Center’s burn unit in Phoenix. The fourth was taken to a West Valley hospital. Also, four other firefighters from the city of Surprise were taken to a hospital for evaluation of less serious injuries. The explosion occurred at the APS McMicken Energy Storage facility near Grand Avenue and Deer Valley Road in Surprise. The facility houses utility-sized batteries for the storage and distribution of solar energy, according to the APS website. Firefighters were called to the substation about 6:00 p.m. Crews, treated the call as a hazardous-materials response. A utility-sized lithium battery at the location was evaluated for hazardous chemical levels. While entering the facility an explosion occurred. APS officials said firefighters were called to the location for what they described as an equipment failure issue at the substation. The substation includes a large, utility-scale battery… The fire was a “cascading thermal runaway event” inside the large APS energy storage facility. The heat from one defective cell inside the company’s Battery Energy Storage System, or BESS, spread to the racks of other batteries. The entire facility was about the size of a shipping container full of computers and battery cells used to store solar energy. The chain reaction caused a buildup of toxic and combustible fumes, and the facility’s fire control system wasn’t equipped to handle chemical fires, according to the report… The conclusions reached in the investigation are as follows: 1) The suspected fire was an extensive cascading thermal runaway event, initiated by an internal cell failure within one battery cell in the BESS: cell pair 7, module 2, rack 15 (battery 7-2). 2) It is believed to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty that this internal failure was caused by an internal cell defect, specifically abnormal Lithium metal deposition and dendritic growth within the cell. 3) The total flooding clean agent fire suppression system installed in the BESS operated early in the incident and accordance with its design. However, clean agent fire suppression systems are designed to extinguish incipient fires in ordinary combustibles. Such systems are not capable of preventing or stopping cascading thermal runaway in a BESS. 4) As a result, thermal runaway cascaded and propagated from cells 7-2 through every cell and module in Rack 15, via heat transfer. This propagation was facilitated by the absence of adequate thermal barrier protection between battery cells, which may have stopped or slowed the propagation of thermal runaway. 5) The uncontrolled cascading of thermal runaway from cell-to-cell and then module-to-module in Rack 15 led to the production of a large number of flammable gases within the BESS. Analysis and modeling from experts in this investigation confirmed that these gases were sufficient to create a flammable atmosphere within the BESS container…Approximately three hours after the thermal runaway began, the BESS door was opened by firefighters, agitating the remaining flammable gases, and allowing the gases to make contact with a heat source or spark. Five main contributing factors led to the explosion: Contributing Factor #1: Internal failure in a battery cell initiated thermal runaway Contributing Factor #2: The fire suppression system was incapable of stopping thermal runaway Contributing Factor #3: Lack of thermal barriers between cells led to cascading thermal runaway Contributing Factor #4: Flammable off-gases concentrated without a means to ventilate Contributing Factor #5: Emergency response plan did not have an extinguishing, ventilation, and entry procedure.”

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On 4/19/1983 a fire at the Central Community Home in Worcester, Massachusetts, licensed by the city for lodging and boarding rooms for former mental health patients (deinstitutionalized) killed seven of the twenty occupants in a three-story wood-frame building with open stairs, combustible interior finish, and no sprinkler protection. The fire was discovered under a bed on the second floor at about 2:00 a.m. The “patient” dragged the mattress to the bathroom where it flared into a full-flaming condition. “The fire rapidly spread throughout the second floor creating untenable conditions on the second and third floors including both stairways.” “Although the occupants were alerted early to the fire, they did not have time to escape from the building before exit access corridors and the exits themselves became untenable due to fire.”

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On 4/19/1895 a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania firefighter died from the injuries he sustained after a wall collapsed at a 4-alarm bakery fire at 210 N. Front Street.

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On 4/19/1899 a Milwaukee, Wisconsin firefighter “died of injuries sustained during a fire the day before at 1st Ave and Burnham.”

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On 4/19/1900 an Indianapolis, Indiana firefighter “died from injuries he received March 14 while fighting a fire at C.B. Cones clothing factory, when a wall collapsed on him.”

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On 4/19/1922 a Chicago, Illinois firefighter died after suffering from asphyxiation at a fire.

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On 4/19/1942 a Boston, Massachusetts firefighter “died from injuries he received when he fell from an aerial ladder, which was located at about the 5th-floor level, and he landed on the turntable of the ladder truck. The fire was in a 6-story building at 201 State Street and 102-104 Central Street, Downtown. Four alarms were transmitted on Box 1286, (India & Central Streets).”

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On 4/19/1972 a Calgary, Alberta, Canada firefighter “was trapped and succumbed to the smoke and flames in the Beachcomber Restaurant blaze at Seventh Ave. and Fifth St. S.W. The fire also injured seven other firefighters.”

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4/19/1980 Baltimore, Maryland firefighter “after operating at an attic fire in a frame dwelling, walked out into the backyard, sat on a bench, and suddenly collapsed. Immediate efforts were launched to revive him, to no avail. He was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival of an apparent massive heart attack.”

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On 4/19/2014 two children died in a Rockaway, (Queens) NY fire that started after a child experimenting with a lighter in a basement bedroom ignited something on the bed shortly before 11:50 p.m.

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On 4/19/2002 four were killed and 133 injured when 14 passenger cars on the Amtrak “Auto Train” derailed near Crescent Florida; the “train consisted of two engines, 16 passenger cars, and 202 automobiles stacked in 23 specially designed cars” and was on tracks owned, operated, and maintained by CSX.?

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On 4/19/1998 in Tempe, Arizona warehouse was destroyed by fire when an improperly designed sprinkler system failed to control the fire in rack storage of Group A plastic commodities stored to 15 feet; the total loss was approximately $6 million.

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On 4/19/1993 a fire in a psychiatric institute in South Korea killed forty.

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On 4/19/1989 off the coast of Florida, an explosion in a gun turret on board the Battleship Iowa killed forty-seven sailors.

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On 4/19/1975 the Princess Irene ship fire killed twenty on the Rhine River in Germany.

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On 4/19/1953 the West Hotel in Sioux City, Iowa was destroyed by a fire at Third and Nebraska Streets, damages were estimated at $200,000.

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On 4/19/1923 the Essex Castle Apartment House fire in Lynn, Massachusetts killed five. The fire started on the second floor near the elevator shaft and cut off all stairways.

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On 4/19/1904 the Great Fire of Toronto destroyed approximately 100 buildings. “The weather in Toronto on the evening of April 19, 1904, was cold and blustery. The air temperature was below freezing, and snow flurries were occurring accompanied by strong winds from the northwest at 30 mph. All was quiet in the heart of Toronto's mercantile area. Few people were on the streets as almost all the buildings in the area had been closed since 6:00 p.m. At 8:04 p.m., a police constable saw flames shooting skyward from a building on Wellington Street and immediately turned in the alarm. Before the resulting conflagration was extinguished, it would destroy approximately 100 buildings and cause a property loss of more than $10 million. Exactly how the fire started has never been solved. By the time the constable saw flames and sounded the alarm from Call Box 12 on that icy night in April, the Wellington Street building in which it had started was already a loss, and the fire was spreading to its neighbors. The flames were rising from the elevator shaft of E & S Currie Limited's neckwear factory at 58 Wellington Street West, just west of Bay Street (now TD Bank Tower). The factory was situated in the center of a large industrial and commercial area in the heart of the city.”

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On 4/19/1881 in Anna, Illinois an insane asylum was destroyed by fire and left one dead. The fire started in the bathroom on the fourth floor in the north wing of the Illinois Southern Hospital for the Insane, around 11:30 p.m.?

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On 4/19/1880 the town of Keytesville, Missouri was destroyed by a fire that originated in State Senator Mackey's Hotel and was spread by a fierce gale.?

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On 4/19/1879 over half of the town of Eureka, Nevada was destroyed by fire, which left 2,000 people without shelter.

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On 4/19/1873 the Baltimore, Maryland telegraph office was heavily damaged by fire after a battery acid explosion.

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On 4/19/1902 the last and most powerful in a series of earthquakes, a magnitude 7.5, shocks Western Guatemala killing more than 2,000, and 50,000 were left homeless.

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On 4/19/1943 the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against Nazi forces began.

On 4/19/1865 President Lincoln's funeral was held in Washington DC

On 4/19/1861 the first blood of the American Civil War was shed when a secessionist mob in Baltimore attacked Massachusetts troops bound for Washington, DC four soldiers and twelve rioters were killed.

On 4/19/1861 Lincoln announced the blockade of all Southern ports from South Carolina to Texas.

On 4/19/1775 The American Revolution began when 77 armed minutemen tried to stop 700 British troops in Lexington, Massachusetts.