Fire Mars 4th of July at Milwaukee's 100 Year Old Miramar Theatre

An early morning electrical fire in the basement of a theatre turned nightclub was detected by an alert employee while cleaning-up about 2:00AM Thursday, July 4th.  A faulty power receptacle is thought to have been the starting point of the fire which caused more smoke damage than anything else.

“We had an electrical fire in our office basement that basically didn’t burn like flames of fire, but it had heat and just lots of smoke, and we had the whole place filled up with smoke,” said owner William Stace.  Fortunately, no one was injured.  The facility will be closed for business until further notice.  According to Stace's employee, Aaron Ohlsson, the venue is critical to the Milwaukee music scene, and several live music acts that were scheduled for the weekend were looking for other places to perform.

The Miramar Theatre owner, Stace, said that although he was frustrated by the timing, he was glad that the damage was minimal.  Smoke damage clean-up is estimated at around $6,300.  Stace said that due to the 4-day holiday, his insurance agent was unavailable, and that cleaning crews could not start to abate the smoke damage until Monday at the earliest.  Getting the place aired-out was the main priority.  The acrid smell of smoke lingers in the theatre, and soot is everywhere.  In retrospect, he says getting a few days to calm-down and rest will be OK.

Further news are available at:
www.wisn.com/fire-breaks-out-in-east-side-theater/-/9374034/20838884/-/e2oixs/-/index.html
and
www.fox6now.com/2013/07/04/100-year-old-miramar-theatre-suffers-fire-damage

Information about the venue can be found at:  www.themiramartheatre.com

Side notes:

• Look carefully in the videos and you can see numerous code violations, so the fire trucks may return unless these issues are resolved.
• The comment about the whole place "filling up with smoke" is worthy of consideration.  Remember that it was the rapid build-up of smoke at both The Station Night Club and the Kiss Nightclub in Brazil that resulted in numerous deaths.

"Oh, that couldn't possibly happen here . . ."

Famous last words.  Not words to live by, either.  The bloggers at Cue To Cue on the BackstageJobs web site have posted a great summary about many of the Theatre and Assembly Space Fires that scorched millions of dollars worth of facilities last year.  Go here to read about them:

Theatre fires are not “something that used to happen.” There were at least 14 just this year.

Of particular interest are the video clips of the scenery and drapery fires that occurs on-stage during a performance.  Luckily, they didn't result in the 600+ deaths that the Iroquois Theatre fire caused, but the circumstances were largely the same - and this blogger sees the set-up for this type of fire ALL THE TIME!  Fireproof your sets - its not just a good idea - its the law! Ref:  NFPA 101 Life Safety Code - Chapter 13, Section 13.4.5.11

For schools and other theatre owners that don't have, or are planning to omit fire curtains from your venue, take a serious look at your fire prevention and control planning - because this could happen in your building, too!

Nightclub Fire in Brazil kills 235, injures over 140

The following report is excerpted from an article in by Associated Press writer JULIANA BARBASSA Original content here:  http://news.yahoo.com/no-alarm-only-1-exit-brazil-nightclub-fire-002812171.html 

SANTA MARIA, Brazil (AP) — The nightclub Kiss was hot, steamy from the press of beer-fueled bodies dancing close. The Brazilian country band on stage was whipping the young crowd into a frenzy, launching into another fast-paced, accordion-driven tune and lighting flares that spewed silver sparks into the air.

It was another Saturday night in Santa Maria, a university town of about 260,000 on Brazil's southernmost tip.

Then, in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning, January 27th, it turned into a scene of indescribable horror as sparks lit a fire in the soundproofing material above the stage, churning out black, toxic smoke as flames raced through the former beer warehouse, killing 233 people.

Picture Tweeted just as the blaze started

"I was right there, so even though I was far from the door, at least I realized something was wrong," said Rodrigo Rizzi, a first-year nursing student who was next to the stage when the fire broke out and watched the tragedy unfold, horror-stricken and helpless.

"Others, who couldn't see the stage, never had a chance. They never saw it coming."

A security guard said afterward that the club was at its estimated maximum capacity of between 1,000 and 2,000 people.

There was no fire alarm, no sprinklers, no fire escape. In violation of state safety codes, fire extinguishers were not spaced every 1,500 square feet, and there was only one exit.

As the city buried its young Monday, questions were raised about whether Brazil is up to the task of ensuring the safety in venues for the World Cup next year, and the Olympics in 2016. Four people were arrested for questioning, including two band members and the nightclub's co-owner.

Rizzi hadn't even planned on going out that night. He was talked into it by friends and knew dozens at the club. He said the first sign of a problem was insulation dripping above the stage.

The flames at that point were barely noticeable, just tiny tongues lapping at the flammable material. The band's singer, Marcelo dos Santos, noticed it and tried to put out the smoldering embers by squirting water from a bottle.

The show kept going. Then, as the ceiling continued to ooze hot molten foam, dos Santos grabbed the drummer's water bottle and aimed it at the fire. That didn't work either, Rizzi said. A security guard handed the band leader a fire extinguisher. He aimed, but nothing came out; the extinguisher didn't work.

At that point, Rizzi said, the singer motioned to the band to get out. Rizzi calmly made his way to the door — the club's only exit — still thinking it was a small fire that would quickly be controlled.

The cavernous building was divided into several sections, including a pub and a VIP lounge — and hundreds of the college students and teenagers crammed in couldn't see the stage. They continued to drink and dance, unaware of the danger spreading above them.

Then, the place became an inferno.

The band members who headed straight for the door lived. One, Danilo Brauner, went back to get his accordion, and never made it out.

The air turned dense and dark with smoke; there was no light, nothing pointing to the single exit. Rizzi found himself clawing through a panicked crowd that surged blindly toward the door.

"I was halfway across the floor, I could see the door, but the air turned black with this thick smoke," he said. "I couldn't breathe. People started to panic and run toward the door. They were falling, screaming, pulling at each other."

The manager, meanwhile, was outside dealing with a drunk and belligerent young man. No one there had any inkling of the desperate scene unfolding just beyond Kiss' black, sound-proof double doors, said taxi driver Edson Schifelbain, who was in his car, waiting for passengers.

A security guard poked his head out and said there was a fight. A fraction of a second later, someone inside yelled "Fire!" The manager opened the doors and it was like opening the gates of hell, Schifelbain said. 

Young men and women, mouths and eyes blackened with soot, clothes tattered, tumbled out screaming and crying. Some ran right over his taxi and two other cabs parked nearby, breaking mirrors, windshields, bashing in the doors. Horrified, he realized his cab was in their way, but couldn't move it because there were bodies hunched over it, collapsed in front of the tires, everywhere.

"The horror I saw in their faces, the terror, I'll never forget," he said. Two girls gasping for air climbed into his car, and as soon as he was able, he sped the six miles (10 kilometers) to the university hospital.

"One of them was crying all the way, screaming, 'My friend is dying,'" he said. "I did what I could. I don't know what happened to those girls." 

Inside the club, metal barriers meant to organize the lines of people entering and leaving became traps, corralling desperate patrons within yards of the exit. Bodies piled up against the grates, smothered and broken by the crushing mob.

Rizzi was stuck, unable to move, taking in gulps of smoke, feeling the gaseous mix burn his lungs.

He was within seconds of passing out, he said, when the whole frenzied mass suddenly lurched forward. The gates gave way, and everyone toppled over. Rizzi was lying on top of two or three people, several more heaped on top of him. He stuck out his hands, smacking them against the sidewalk and door.

Someone pulled him to safety. "To get out, I climbed, I pulled people's hair. I felt other people grabbing me, hitting me in the face," he said. "It's hard to describe the horror. But once I was outside, I recovered, and started pulling out the others."

Soon, he said, the street was a sea of bodies.

This was the scene 24-year-old Gabriel Barcellos Disconzi found when he arrived about 3:30 a.m., an hour after fire broke out. Wakened by a phone call from friends, the club regular immediately started pulling out bodies as smoke spewed so thick that entering the building was unthinkable. 

Using sledgehammers and picks and their bare hands, he and other young men broke down the walls. Born and bred in Santa Maria, the outgoing young lawyer had dozens of friends and acquaintances inside.

"It was all so fast, there was no time for anything, no time for crying over a friend," he said. "It was dead people over here, living over there. Body after body after body."

Both Rizzi and Disconzi were there when they broke into one of the bathrooms and found a tableau of nearly indescribable desperation: It was crammed with bodies, tangled and tossed like dolls, piled as high as Rizzi's chest. In the darkness and confusion, concert-goers had rushed into the bathroom thinking it was an exit. They died, crushed and airless in the dark.

"I'll never forget the wall of people," Rizzi said. Disconzi helped load them into a truck. Just the dead jammed into that bathroom filled an entire truck, he said.

By this time, the city was waking up to the dimension of the tragedy unfolding at its heart. Doctors, nurses and psychologists began arriving, giving immediate assistance — checking eyes and respiratory passages, stabilizing the burned, resuscitating those whose hearts had stopped or lungs had failed because of the smoke. The living they loaded into ambulances. The mounting number of dead went into trucks.

At Charity Hospital, the region's largest, "It was a war scene," said Dr. Ronald Bossemeyer, the technical director. "Trying to give care, comfort the living, and keep family members who started to arrive from overwhelming everything — it was madness," he said, choking back tears. "The wounded, the doctors, people running with saline, with oxygen. We've never seen so many patients." 

As families waited, nurses and technicians ran back and forth, bringing an earring, a shoe, a wallet, anything that could help identify those still living, Bossemeyer said.

As doctors were at work saving those who could be saved, a group of mothers was calling around to check on one another. Elaine Marques Goncalves woke up to that terrible question: Do you know where your child is? 

With a jolt, she realized two of her sons, Gustavo and Deivis, had not come home the night before. "I knew they'd gone to a club, but I didn't know which one," she said. Trying to keep calm, she joined the multitude pressing for news outside the hospital.

Hours later, she got some good news: Gustavo had burns on 20 percent of his body and had suffered two heart attacks as his lungs failed to draw oxygen, but he was alive and being flown to the state capital, Porto Alegre, for treatment. 

"I had time to put my hands on him and say, 'My dear, your mother is here with you,'" she said. "He was sedated, but I know he could hear. Then I had to tear myself away and go find my other son."

Hours passed as the dead piled up in the city gym. It took an entire day of anguish before she learned what she'd dreaded most: Deivis was dead.

As he lay there among basketball hoops and water coolers, one body among so many, she asked the questions on everyone's mind.

"How can a club just burn like that? People have to know what happened here," she said. "It won't bring back my son, but I have to ask. This nightclub was beyond capacity. The whole world has to know. Why couldn't they get out?"

*********************

Police were questioning the club's owner and interviewing witnesses as part of an investigation into what caused the blaze, state-run Agencia Brasil reported.

The club's license had expired in August and had not been renewed, local fire official Moises da Silva Fuchs told Globo TV.

In total, at least 235 [as of 1/30/2013] died - almost an even number of men and women - while over 140 people were treated in hospitals, Reuters reported.

Reinaldo Azevedo, writing on the Veja news website, asked why the fire department had previously approved a venue with only one exit. "Our grief must also exercise wrath," he wrote. "This is not a tragedy manufactured by chance. It is the work of a chain of negligence."

Ongoing updates about this event can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_nightclub_fire 

A good commentary and news summary from the Ingorsoll-Rand Door Hardware Company's blog site I Dig Hardware: http://idighardware.com/2013/01/kiss-nightclub-santa-maria-brazil/

*********************

1940 - Rhythm Nightclub, Natchez, Mississippi - 209 fatalities.

1942 - Coconut Grove Nightclub - Boston, Massachusetts - 492 deaths.

1977 - Beverly Hills Supper Club - Southgate, Kentucky - 165 dead.

1981 - Stardust Nightclub - Dublin, Ireland - 48 killed.

1996 - Ozone Disco Pub - Quezon City, Phillipines - 162 died.

In 2000, 309 people were killed in a fire at club in Luoyang, China. 

2003 - Epitome Nightclub - Chicago, Illinois - 21 fatalities.

A 2003 nightclub fire killed 100 people in Rhode Island at The Station Nightclub after the rock band Great White illegally used pyrotechnics that ignited combustible foam soundproofing that lined the walls and ceilings of the venue.


Another celebration where fireworks ignited ceiling décor occurred in Buenos Aires, Argentina's República Cromagnon nightclub in 2004; the death toll there was 194.

A 2009 fire at the Lame Horse nightclub in Perm, Russia, was caused by fireworks igniting plastic decorations on the ceiling; 152 died as a result.

Killer Show - Not your normal night out.

Author and Lawyer John Barylic has summarized the events that led up-to and resulted in the 2003 fire that killed 100 people at The Station Nightclub in East Warwick, Rhode Island.  His book summarizes the mounds of documents researched on behalf of the families of those injured and killed that fateful night.

The story of the fire, its causes, and its legal and human-tragedy aftermath, is one of human lives put at risk by petty economic decisions – by a band, club owners, promoters, building inspectors and product manufacturers. Any one of those decisions could have potentially avoided the tragedy. Together, however, they formed a fatal critical mass.

Information about his book can be found at www.killershowbook.com

The site include reviews of the book, photos from the event, and links to interviews.

Photo Credit:  Daniel Davidson (Copyright holder)

Other interesting links about this event:

NIST Disaster and Failure Studies:
www.nist.gov/el/disasterstudies/fire/station_nightclub_fire_2003.cfm

NFPA Case Study: Nightclub Fires:
www.nfpa.org/assets/files/pdf/research/case_study_nightclub_fires.pdf

Fire Engineering Magazine:
www.fireengineering.com/articles/print/volume-165/issue-1/features/station-nightclub-fire-revisiting-lessons-p1.html

70th Anniversary of Cocoanut Grove Nightclub Fire

QUINCY, MA -- The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has teamed up with a number of public and private organizations to form The Cocoanut Grove Coalition to preserve the history of the monumental nightclub fire that took the lives of 492 people 70 years ago.

The deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history occurred in Boston on November 28, 1942. The coalition includes the Boston Fire Department, the Boston Fire Historical Society, Boston Fire Museum, City of Boston Archives, Boston Public Library, and Massachusetts General Hospital.

According to Sue Marsh, the NFPA’s librarian, time was of the essence as all agreed that it was vital not to let more time pass before gathering additional resources, especially personal accounts from those impacted by the fire, “knowing that if we didn’t, things would be lost.”

Three videos in which Cocoanut Grove fire victims tell their stories exemplify the rich content that has come from these collections and this project.

All of the organizations represented in the coalition have material related to the fire. The intent of the project, according to Marsh, is to provide a single way to access all of the information as well as attract additional information that is out there but has not surfaced.

The NFPA library receives more requests related to Cocoanut Grove than any other incident.

“Unlike some earlier landmark fires, like the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. fire in New York in 1911, the Cocoanut Grove fire did not result in significant changes to NFPA codes,” writes Fred Durso, Jr. in the November / December 2012 issue of the NFPA Journal.

However, Boston and municipalities throughout the country underwent sweeping changes, including the reclassification of nightclubs and restaurants as places of public assembly, which is how they were already regarded in the Building Exits Code. The change introduced more stringent requirements for exits, emergency lighting, occupancy capacities, and other safety features.”
For more information, visit The Cocoanut Grove Fire website, www.cocoanutgrovefire.org.

Welding Spark Causes Fire at Bronx Theater

Nov 5, 2012 - Bronx, New York.  FDNY rolled multiple fire-fighting units on Monday in response to smoke and fire at the historic landmark Paradise Theater.  The fire resulted from welding sparks that entered an air duct as work was being done to restore the 1929 venue.  Fire crews remained on the scene for several hours to ensure that the fire did not restart due to overlooked pockets that might be hidden in walls or other building voids.  Most of the damage to the building is thought to be smoke related, with some water damage.

Bronx Paradise Theater - Photo Credit: Niko J. Kallianiotis for The New York Times

The 4000 seat Paradise Theater is one of the last Atmospheric theaters that employed a dark blue ceiling to create the effect of an open night sky above the audience.  Originally designed and used for both Vaudeville shows and cinema, the interior of both the lobby and the audience chamber is ornate.  The elaborate wall murals that portray Italian Baroque buildings extend across the painted fire curtain.  More history of the building can be found at: http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/900.

The auditorium is the second largest in New York, only smaller than Radio City Music Hall, and the 23rd largest auditorium ever built in the country.  It was designed by John Eberson, who was one of the most prominent theater designers in the United States and inventor of the Atmospheric style, the theater sought to transport visitors to an outdoor Baroque Italian garden of marble pillars, cypress trees, plaster replications of Michelangelo sculptures, vines, stuffed birds, and even a goldfish pond.  With a painted ceiling of stars bearing the constellation of Marcus Loews' birth sign and a smoke machine producing simulated clouds, viewers felt they were sitting under an evening sky. The result was a multi-sensory movie experience, an escape.  According to Eberson, the auditorium was "a magnificent amphitheatre under a glorious moonlit sky where friendly stars twinkled and wisps of cloud drifted."  Additional descriptions of the theater can be found at: www.placematters.net/node/1310 and:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Theater_%28Bronx,_New_York%29

Fire in Walls and Attic of Madison Union Theatre

October 8, 2012. Madison, Wisconsin.   A small fire started Monday morning at approximately 7:35 a.m. in a portion of the attic of Wisconsin Union Theater that is currently under construction.  Smoke was seen pouring out of the north side and roof of the 73-year-old theater.  Despite some problems getting to the hard-to-reach attic above the theatre, the fire was under control by 7:55am.

The Madison Fire Department firefighters were called to the scene at 7:38am and arrived three minutes later. The first crew on the scene reported a large amount of smoke coming from the side and roof of the building. A second alarm was requested to bring additional firefighters and equipment to the scene.

A fire crew entered the building and saw fire burning along the walls near the ceiling of the theater. They quickly extinguished the visible flames and began searching for access to the attic. Once an access door for the attic was located, firefighters pulled a water hose up into the attic.  They found a large fire burning in the smoke filled attic. They extinguished all visible fire and began searching for any hot spots in the walls and ceiling.

Though the main portion of the building is isolated from the theater wing, it was evacuated as a precaution.  There were no injuries to anyone working on the project.  School officials said the extent of the loss was limited because the building was already gutted for renovation and was already cleared of items like seats.  Police said the fire caused an estimated $10,000 in smoke and water damage, but the building did not suffer any structural damage.

The fire started as a result of cutting work being performed by a demolition crew. They torch cut into a section of wall that had some waxed paper content.  According to one firefighter "It started in a wall. We had a report of a worker that was doing some cutting and it got into a shaft ... from that cutting procedure that he had done... and burned up through a shaft in the wall into the attic space."

Baltimore's abandoned Ambassador Theatre Catches Fire

2012-07-05 Baltimore, Maryland - One of Baltimore's old movie palaces caught fire early Thursday morning, sending flames through the roof of the building.

The fire started about 12:30 a.m. at the site of the Ambassador Theater at 4604 Liberty Heights Avenue.  Fire crews from the city, as well as Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties, battled the blaze and contained it in about 30 minutes.  Nearby residents were concerned that the fire might spread to the gas station on the adjacent property.  No one was injured.  There's currently no word on what caused the 76-year-old theater to catch fire.

The Ambassador Theatre has not been a movie theatre since 1968 and has served in recent years as a church and a Cosmology School.  It's also the sister theatre of the famous Senator Theatre in Baltimore.  The Art Deco building is currently vacant and was put-up for auction sale in July 2009, however, there were no bids submitted for it.

Read more:

www.abc2news.com/dpp/news/region/baltimore_city/two-2-alarm-fires-in-baltimore-city#ixzz1zoSBTIAj

www.wbaltv.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/Crews-battle-fires-at-historic-movie-theater-row-home/-/10131532/15410282/-/dn95c2/-/index.html#ixzz1zoRdFXLm

www.kilduffs.com/AAA.html

Pictures after the fire:
www.baltimorebrew.com/2012/07/06/ambassador-theatre-after-the-fire/

Fire on Stage in Theatre School Severely Damages Building

July 4, 2012 - Arlington, Texas - The Creative Arts School (CATS) had much of their facility damaged or destroyed when a fire broke-out near or on the stage of their facility around 9:00 PM during the Independence Day holiday.  Fortunately, the building was closed for the day and no one was injured.  Passersby noticed the flames and smoke and called the fire department which responded within minutes.  There were no reports of any fire alarm system activation, so the only thing that saved the building from total destruction was the alert citizens that reported the fire.

The initial blaze was more than the fire fighters expected and they had to pull-back from their first attempt to contain the fire until additional equipment arrived.  The area of the building where the fire appeared to be the most intense was the stage.  Three fire teams were summoned to the site before the fire could be quelled.  The exact cause of the fire has not been determined.  News programs showed images of severely smoke and water damaged interior.

The building was formerly a church, and the main performance auditorium was used by CATS as a private school.  CATS has been in this location for 27 of it's 33 years, and was trying to sell the building so they could move to a newer facility.  The fire has forced them to accelerate their plans as they have a summer class with 14 students and a fall class with over 300.  Another non-profit Theatre Company, Theatre Arlington, has offered to let CATS use their facility for their summer classes.

Natonal Fire Prevention Week - A look back at the Iroquois Theatre Fire

Much hasn't changed in the last 100 years - I still routinely find Fire Exits blocked, dysfunctional Fire Curtains, and flammable scenery, props, and costumes in every theatre I visit.  These were the very cause of the Iroquois Theatre fire. Think about it!

Asbestos Fire Curtain in an older theatre

For a bit of perspective, visit the following web sites a read-up on this disaster

• http://www.inficad.com/~ksup/iroquois.html
• http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9D02E5D71130E233A25750C0A9679C946597D6CF
• http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/PDF/iroquois.pdf
• http://www.wayneturney.20m.com/iroquoisfire.htm

Please, think twice before you set the stage for another disaster.