Today in Fire History 8/15

8/15/1948 a fire in a false-fronted frame and brick building in the old business district exploded that killed five firefighters and injured 137 spectators in Reno, NV. “The explosion and fire killed the fire chief of a nearby city and four men. A sixth, a Reno firefighter, was missing. The blast sprayed injury among the spectators. Some were trampled in the rush to getaway. As firefighters fought to prevent the blaze from spreading to adjoining buildings, a police officer warned the crowd to get back that ‘there's dynamite in there.”

8/15/1845 two Charlestown, MA firefighters “were killed by falling walls while operating at a fire at the City Hotel Stables on Brattle Square, Boston. Several other firefighters were injured while attempting to rescue horses from the stable. All the horses were rescued but a couple received slight burns.”

8/15/1897 a Cleveland, OH firefighter “collapsed and died while working at a fire at 314 Starkweather Ave.”

8/15/1898 an Oakland, CA firefighter “died of injuries he sustained at a fire on Sixth Street a few months earlier. At the time of his injury, he was trying to rescue another firefighter, and in the process of doing so, he was struck in the head with a nozzle. For a time after his injury, he seemed to improve, but was subsequently stricken with paralysis and died.”

8/15/1919 a Portland, Oregon firefighter “died as a result of a 30-foot fall from a railroad trestle at a fire which destroyed the Northwest Box Factory. He was hit by a hose and hurled to the railroad track below. He was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital where he died with a skull fracture and several broken ribs... Around 7:00 p.m., August 14, the night watchman at the Northwest Box Factory, at the foot of SW Lincoln Street, noticed a fire underneath the building. He turned in the fire at the nearest alarm box. The fire grew quickly. Truck 1 arrived, and the firefighter and his crew were assigned a position on a railroad trestle on the side of the building. The creosote-soaked timbers of the trestle ended up catching fire and the trestle was starting to give so the crews scrambled to get off. He got hit from the side by the hose being pulled back and it knocked him and several others off the trestle. It was about 30 feet down.”

8/15/1936 a Columbus, Ohio firefighter died “while trying to save the lives of brother firefighter as they battled a large blaze amid a tangle of wires. The firefighter was electrocuted when he snipped a 66,000-volt wire with a pair of insulated cutters. The fire destroyed three garages and two homes.”

8/15/1951 a Noblesville, IN firefighter “was electrocuted when he jumped from a bale of paper to the ground while handling a fire hose and fighting a fire at a junkyard. The junkyard was located at 6th and Preston Streets in Noblesville.”

8/15/1958 a Saint Ansgar, IA firefighter “died from the injuries he sustained in a dynamite blast.”

8/15/1963 a Cleveland, Ohio firefighter “died as a result of the injuries he sustained in a massive explosion while operating at a propane leak in the truck rental garage on August 13, 1963. Two other firefighters were instantly killed in the blast, and a fourth firefighter died on September 1, 1963, as a result of the injuries sustained.”

8/15/1975 a Chicago, IL firefighter died during a fire at a car dealership at 2222 North Cicero Avenue. An eighteen-foot brick wall collapsed on him as he and two other firefighters were trying to break down a wooden door at the rear of the building. A fire had weakened the truss roof supports in the building, causing the wall to collapse. He was taken to St. Anne’s Hospital where he was pronounced dead.”

8/15/1976 two Edmonton, Alberta, Canada firefighters “were killed in a flashover in a two-story JJ and Friends Discotheque on 10921 101 St. Eighty-five patrons were told to flee after club staff failed to extinguish the fire. By the time the fire department was called, the club was filled with smoke and the blaze so intense it was described as ‘furnace-like.”

8/15/1981 two Wauwatosa, WI firefighters “died while battling a blaze at Alioto's Restaurant, 3041 N. Mayfair Rd., after they were trapped in the basement where the fire started. A flashover occurred, and they were overcome by the thick smoke.”

8/15/2011 in Brevard County, FL a fuel tanker crashed and caught fire on State Road A1A forcing the road to be closed for hours. “The 8,500-gallon-capacity gasoline tanker was driving southbound and crashed into a pole on the west side of the highway near Shearwater Parkway, around 9:20 p.m.”

8/15/1981 an in-flight balloon fire killed five near Barrington IL.

8/15/1907 seventeen summer hotels, sixty cottages, and a score of buildings occupied by stores were destroyed by an explosion and fire that occurred in a drug store, on Old Orchard Avenue that left two dead in the seaside town of Old Orchard, ME.

8/15/1884 the Fulton Area where houses occupy a narrow strip of land between the river and hill in the eastern part of Cincinnati, OH was destroyed by a fire that started in the sawmill after a boiler and sent burning firebrands in every direction.

8/15/1884 an incendiary fire in Lampasas, TX destroyed the business portion of the town.

8/15/1969, the Woodstock Music Festival opened on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in an open pasture near White Lake, a hamlet in the upstate New York town of Bethel.

8/15/1914 the Panama Canal opened to traffic.

8/15/1780 the “Swamp Fox” American Lieutenant Colonel Francis Marion, and his irregular cavalry force of 250 routs a party of Loyalists at Port's Ferry, South Carolina.

8/15/1620 the Mayflower set sail from Southampton with 102 Pilgrims.