On 6/30/1954 the Flammable Fabrics Act took effect to regulate the manufacture of highly flammable clothing, originally placing enforcement authority with the Federal Trade Commission. “In 1967, Congress amended the Flammable Fabrics Act to expand its coverage to include interior furnishings as well as paper, plastic, foam and other materials used in wearing apparel and interior furnishings.”
On 6/30/2013 nineteen members of the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew (firefighters) were killed while working the Yarnell Hill fire, listed at 800 acres on Sunday morning; when a thunder cell passed over the fire blew up with wind gusts of 40-50 mph. Fire crews were reported to have deployed their fire shelters at about 5:55 p.m. Because of poor visibility, fire behavior, and high wind, no contact was made with the crew for a little more than an hour. Shortly thereafter, confirmation of the multiple firefighter fatalities was made.
On 6/30/1900 the 1900 Hoboken Docks Fire “occurred killing at least 326 persons in and around the Hoboken, New Jersey piers of the Norddeutscher Lloyd (North German Lloyd) shipping company. The piers were located in New York Harbor, at the foot of Third and Fourth Streets in Hoboken, across the Hudson River from Manhattan in New York City. The fire began when cotton bales stored on the company’s southernmost wharf caught fire, and winds carried the flames to nearby barrels of volatile liquids, such as turpentine and oil, which exploded in rapid succession. It burned the Hoboken piers to the waterline, consumed or gutted nearby warehouses, gutted three major transatlantic liners, and damaged or destroyed nearly two dozen smaller craft. Most of the victims were seamen and other workers, but also included women visiting one of the ships. The event remains the largest loss of live fire in the history of New Jersey… With the wind driving the fire very rapidly, the flames jumped from the pier sheds to the barges and lighters, and then from the barges and lighters to the ships. Many sources state that everything was ablaze in the span of ten to twenty minutes. The Lloyd’s Chief Inspector went to the end of one of the piers to summon the aid of tugboats to pull the large ships out. During this time, he had ordered that important paperwork and money be rushed out of the burning pier offices…Many of the deaths occurred as the flames reached several of the company’s transatlantic steamships docked at the piers, including the Saale, Main, and Bremen. These ocean liners, which caught fire while their coal-fired steam engines were cold, became deathtraps for dozens of seamen and visitors who were unable to reach safety on deck, squeeze through portholes, or otherwise escape.”
On 6/30/1974 twenty-four patrons die and thirty-two others including thirteen firefighters were injured in the Port Chester, New York, Gulliver’s Nightclub fire. “The Gulliver’s nightclub fire occurred in the early hours of on the border of Port Chester, New York, and Greenwich, Connecticut. The fire was caused by an arsonist, set in an adjacent bowling alley to cover up a minor burglary. On the main floor of Gulliver’s were a dining room, main bar, and kitchen; down a short but fairly narrow flight of stairs was the lower-level lounge. On the ground floor of the building, there was a small barbershop, retail clothing store, and bowling alley occupied almost half the building. In the early morning hours, a rock group was performing when the first wisps of acrid smoke drifted into the nightclub. There were about 200 young people in the lower level lounge “Smoke came in quickly and there was almost a stampede for the stairway.” Three hundred firefighters from 19 fire companies from New York and Connecticut responded. By the time the firefighters arrived, the building was engulfed in flames. Various reports claim it took about 90 minutes to four hours to get the fire under control. Most of the 24 victims were found at the foot of the stairs, or on the sunken dance floor. Autopsies revealed that all the victims died from asphyxiation. The bowling alley where the fire started had gone without government fire inspections for five years before the fire. The cause of this lapse appeared to be an agreement written in 1961 from the Connecticut State Fire Marshal to both municipalities involved that was forgotten about after the retirement of a Port Chester fire inspector in 1969. The fire at Gulliver’s was the deadliest dance club fire in the United States in more than a generation. Killing 24 people, mostly from smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning, it called attention to the dangers of herding young people into windowless underground rooms without smoke alarms, sprinklers, fire-resistant walls, or occupancy limits.”
On 6/30/1989 an accidental rapidly developing fire killed five people and injured twenty others on the sixth floor of an occupied ten-story office high-rise in Atlanta, Georgia causing heavy damage on the floor of the fire origin in the fire-resistive non-sprinklered structure. The fire started around 10:30 a.m. as an electrician, working in the sixth-floor electrical room insert a fuse into an energized circuit under a load causing a massive arc that ignited the interior finish materials. Many sixth-floor occupants were unable to reach the exits. “Approximately one-half of the sixth-floor occupants were trapped. One woman jumped and received multiple injuries, and 14 people were rescued by aerial ladder.”
On 6/30/1882 a Baltimore, Maryland firefighter “was hit in the back by a coupling while leading off at a fire scene. This resulted in infection to the spine. The fire was started by a discarded match thrown by children.”
On 6/30/1895 two Worcester, Massachusetts firefighters “died from the injuries they sustained after they were caught in a collapse of building while they were operating at a fire.”
On 6/30/1923 a Dallas, Texas firefighter “died from a serious crush injury he received when a wall collapsed while operating at a fire at the Texas Wheels & Body Company. He and another firefighter were also caught in the collapse. The second firefighter died from his injuries on August 18, 1923, and the other firefighter was able to recover from the serious injuries he sustained that day.”
On 6/30/1941 a Chicago, Illinois firefighter died after he was overcome by smoke while fighting a residential fire at 220 E. 41st Street. He was treated by Inhalator Squad 3 and taken to Chicago Memorial Hospital, but efforts to revive him were unsuccessful.”
On 6/30/1950 a Memphis, Tennessee firefighter “suffered a heart attack and collapsed while fighting a fire involving 3 homes on Silverage Avenue near Swift Street. He died en route to the hospital.”
On 6/29/1969 a Saint Joseph, Missouri firefighter “died after he came in contact with high voltage wires as he was climbing an aerial ladder at a fire scene.”
On 6/30/1979 a Clarkesville, Georgia firefighter “died from the injuries he sustained while battling a blaze at the Mount Carmel Baptist Church. During the early morning hours, one firefighter lost his life and a second firefighter was seriously injured while battling the fire. The second firefighter endured his last 16 years with unbelievable pain from burns and injuries he sustained while attempting to save the first firefighter.
On 6/30/1992 a Braddock Heights, Maryland firefighter died “while operating on the roof of a residential structure fire.”
On 6/30/2010 four people were killed and eleven were displaced in a home fire that may have started from an electrical problem around 2:40 a.m. at 465 East 31st Street in Paterson, New Jersey. “The building has a history of code violations, primarily electrical,”
On 6/30/1927 the Danville Virginia main traffic bridge was completely destroyed by fire; “when a tar kettle used during repairs on the bridge flooring bubbled over, took fire and spread liquid flame in all directions over the creosoted blocks.”
On 6/30/1926 a slate gas explosion killed three boys in the Slate Dump of the Ellsworth Collieries in Washington, Pennsylvania.
On 6/30/1917 a whaleback steamer (Christopher Columbus) disaster killed thirteen while “swinging away for her return trip to Chicago, crashed into a dock on the Milwaukee River (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), causing a huge water tank to fall from the top of the five-story Yahr & Lang warehouse onto the deck of the vessel.” “There were said to be approximately 400 passengers on the whaleback, including several students from the University of Chicago.”
On 6/30/1910 the Wymore, Nebraska business block fire started
On 6/30/1903 the Paint Lick, Kentucky conflagration started. The business portion of the village was destroyed by a fire that started around 2:00 a.m.
On 6/30/1903 a Hanna, Wyoming mine explosion killed 235 of 282 working miners.
On 6/30/1900 four German boats burn at the docks in Hoboken, New Jersey, which killed more than 300.
On 6/30/1890 Standard Oil Refinery, explosion and fire in Louisville, Kentucky left five dead and thirty-five injured.
On 6/30/1855 a boiler explosion on the Steamer Lexington killed twenty-four in Rome, Indiana
On 6/30/1880 several Denison, Texas buildings were destroyed or damaged by a fire that started at 4:30 a.m. in the grocery store and extended to four frame buildings.