No Greater Building Fire Tragedy in 27 Years

Firehouse.Com News

The building fire that claimed six firefighters' lives in Worcester, Mass. Friday is the deadliest to America's firefighters since a 1978 New York City supermarket fire also killed six. The Hotel Vendome fire in Boston in 1972 is the only structure fire in the last three decades to take more lives of America's Bravest, United States Fire Administration Chief Operating Officer Ken Burris told Firehouse.Com news Sunday night.

"My heart sank on hearing the news," Burris, a 23-year fire service veteran said. "It's a tragedy for everyone in the [fire service]. I join [Federal Emergency Management Agency] Director James Lee Witt and President Clinton in offering our condolences."

Federal investigators are on the scene and are in the early phases of the determining what caused the blaze and the events that led to the firefighters' deaths.

"We'll have to use some discretion and wait to see what the full investigation reveals," Burris said.

Only one other fire this decade has claimed more firefighters, Burris confirmed. Fourteen firefighters were killed in the Storm King Mountain wildfire in July 1994. An oil refinery explosion in 1984 claimed 14 industrial firefighters and a 1988 explosives trailer blast killed six firefighters. None of those fatalities were directly tied to interior structural firefighting.

The fire is the third deadliest in Massachusetts. In addition to the Vendome fire,a March, 1946 roof collapse at the Strand Theatre in Brockton, Mass. killed 13 firefighters.

Only three other major emergency incidents, including two explosions and a wildfire, have claimed more than six firefighters at one time since 1978:

• July 23, 1984: A massive explosion at the Union Oil Company refinery in Romeoville, Ill. - the result of a propane gas leak in a cracking tower - killed 19 people, including ten members of the company's fire brigade.
  
• Nov. 29, 1988: Six firefighters in Kansas City, Mo. were killed instantly as they approached a semi-trailer from which smoke had been seen coming from. The trailers were loaded with explosives. The blast left two large craters in the ground.
  
• July 6, 1994: While operating at a major wildfire on Storm King Mountain near Glenwood Springs, Colo., 14 forestry firefighters were killed when shifting 70-mph winds trapped them and the fire swept over their position.
  

Earlier this year, three Texas firefighters were killed battling a church fire. Last December, three New York City firefighters died battling an apartment fire. Also last year, three members of a Los Angeles City Fire Department helicopter crew died in a crash during a medical transport.

Firefighter deaths in the United States have been on a steady decline in the last 20 years, although the number of firefighter deaths reported in 1999 will rise above 100 for the first time since 1994 following the Worcester tragedy. Click here for that story.