Today in Fire History 4/27

On 4/27/1865 the SS Sultana boiler explosion and fire killed 1,547 in the Mississippi River just north of Memphis, Tennessee. Many of the victims were soldiers from the Confederate prisoner-of-war camp at Andersonville, Georgia. The 260’ boat was authorized to carry 376 passengers and crew, when the Sultana left Vicksburg, it carried 2,100 troops and 200 civilians. “Constructed of wood in 1863 by the John Litherbury Boatyard in Cincinnati, Ohio, Sultana was intended for the lower Mississippi cotton trade. The steamer registered 1,719 tons and normally carried a crew of 85. For two years, she ran a regular route between St. Louis and New Orleans and was frequently commissioned to carry troops during the American Civil War. Around 2:00 a.m. the Sultana was about seven miles north of Memphis, and a boiler exploded. First one boiler exploded, followed a split-second later by two more. The enormous explosion of steam came from the top rear of the boilers and went upward at a 45-degree angle, tearing through the crowded decks above and completely demolishing the pilothouse. Without a pilot to steer the boat, Sultana became a drifting, burning hulk. The terrific explosion flung some of the deck passengers into the water and destroyed a large section of the boat. The twin smokestacks toppled over; the starboard smokestack backward into the blasted hole, and the port smokestack forward onto the crowded forward section of the upper deck. The forward part of the upper deck collapsed onto the middle deck, killing and trapping many in the wreckage. Fortunately, the sturdy railings around the twin openings of the main stairway prevented the upper deck from crushing down completely onto the middle deck. The men located around the twin openings quickly crawled under the wreckage and down the main stairs. Further back, the collapsing decks formed a slope that led down into the exposed furnace boxes. The broken wood caught fire and turned the remaining superstructure into an inferno. Survivors panicked and raced for the safety of the water, but in their weakened condition, they soon ran out of strength and began to cling to each other. Whole groups went down together.”

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On 4/27/1998 at approximately 11:00 p.m. in Arlington, Washington an incendiary fire in an occupied board and care facility killed eight of the building’s thirty-two residents, who were mentally challenged and had varying degrees of physical handicaps, in the two-story, wood-frame structure originally built as a hospital in 1908 and was not equipped with an automatic fire sprinkler system. The fire started in a first-floor room occupied by three women and extended from the room of origin, through the open door, into the first-floor corridor, and spread to the adjacent interior stairway to the second floor where the door had been blocked open by a 10-pound block, which allowed the movement of the smoke and fire to the second level.

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On 4/27/1870 a Richmond, Virginia firefighter died “while operating at the State Capitol disaster when a balcony collapsed.”

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On 4/27/1904 three New York, New York (FDNY) firefighters were killed in a four-alarm fire that destroyed the five-story John Stanley Soap Works on West Thirtieth Street at about 3:30 a.m. “A five-story story brick soap factory was heavily involved in fire upon the arrival of firefighters. The fire quickly engulfed the adjacent four and two-story brick buildings on either side and then extended to a box and lumber firm. A total of seventeen engines, five ladders, two fireboats, and a water tower operated at the five-alarm fire. The three firefighters were wetting down the ruins when a wall collapsed on top of them. One firefighter, still standing upright, was buried up to his eyes in debris. He was dug out and taken to the hospital with a fractured skull and a broken back. He died just about the time that the other two men were dug out, over ten hours later.”

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On 4/27/1913 a Memphis, Tennessee firefighter “died as a result of lockjaw that had set in from head and ankle injuries sustained April 20th, when he was caught in the collapse of a porch while operating at a dwelling fire.”

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On 4/27/1915 a Trenton, New Jersey firefighter was crushed to death when he was caught under a collapsing wall while operating at a fire.

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On 4/27/1924 a Lowell, Massachusetts firefighter “died of the injuries he sustained after he had fallen from the aerial ladder while operating at a fire.”

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On 4/27/1928 two Paterson, New Jersey firefighters were killed while operating at a three-alarm fire involving a department store.

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On 4/27/1929 a Chicago, Illinois firefighter “died while fighting a 4-11 alarm fire in a warehouse at 28 North Des Plaines Street. He was operating on the third floor of the warehouse when the fourth floor collapsed and was buried under dozens of 100-pound sacks of sugar that fell to the third floor. It took other firefighters more than ten minutes to rescue him. He was transported to Washington Boulevard Hospital, but efforts to revive him were unsuccessful.”

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On 4/27/1950 an Oklahoma City, Oklahoma firefighter died from blunt trauma after a wall fell and killed him as he fought a fire in a Lumber Yard

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On 4/27/1971 a Fort Wainwright, Alaska firefighter died while fighting an apartment fire. “When he arrived at the scene, he was confronted by neighbors of the fire victims and screams of “save my baby”, by the mother of a child that was trapped inside the burning apartment. Immediately, he donned his protective breathing apparatus, without waiting for a hose line, and dashed through the back door of the dense, smoke-filled, and extremely hot apartment to attempt to rescue the child. He proceeded upstairs and was able to search the two bedrooms before the intense heat and smoke almost overpowered him. Seeking to escape, he returned to the first-floor apartment. The firefighter was caught in an unexpected backflash and his protective clothing was ignited. He directed firefighters working at a window to his location in the inferno to spray water on him and was able to get through a broken window where he was assisted to safety. He was taken to Basset Army Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries in a few hours.”

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On 4/27/1981 a Kansas City, Missouri firefighter was trapped in a fire and died of his injuries.

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On 4/27/2009 a woman died, and a young boy was critically injured when a hyperbaric oxygen chamber exploded in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida at the Ocean Hyperbaric Oxygen Neurologic Center, a private medical clinic.

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On 4/27/1931 the two-story Eastport, New York wood school building was heavily damaged by fire.

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On 4/27/1915 the Detroit-Belle Isle, Michigan Bridge was destroyed by fire resulting from a hot tar wagon.

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On 4/27/1903 the town of Kimball, Wisconsin was destroyed by a forest fire.

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On 4/27/1892 the Grand Central Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was destroyed by fire and left more than fifty injured, many of them fatally. The fire extended to a massive eight-story annex building occupied by the Times.

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On 4/27/1838 a fire destroyed half of Charleston, South Carolina after extending from a paint store, on the western side of King Street.

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On 4/27/1860 near Memphis, Tennessee the Steamer A. T. Lacy fire left thirteen dead.

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On 4/27/1942 a tornado destroyed Pryor, Oklahoma killing 100 and injuring 300

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On 4/27/1937 the U.S. Social Security system makes its 1st benefit payment

On 4/27/1822 Ulysses S. Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio

On 4/27/1805 U.S. Marines attacked the shores of Tripoli during the Barbary War

On 4/27/1773 the “British Parliament passes the Tea Act, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company from bankruptcy by greatly lowering the tea tax it paid to the British government and, thus, granting it a de facto monopoly on the American tea trade.”