On 5/13/1985 the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania police aerial bombed Osage Avenue, and MOVE, a radical cult group, that had assembled a large arsenal, left eleven people dead and 61 homes burned down. “At the MOVE headquarters, 6221 Osage Avenue, MOVE began assembling a cache of weapons and building bunkers in their row house; members set up several loudspeakers and began shouting profanities at their neighbors. Everything came to a head when the Mayor ordered police to raid the MOVE headquarters. Authorities soon realized that there was very little they could do to remove MOVE members from their entrenched position. At about 5:30 p.m. on May 13, a small bomb was dropped on the roof of the building in an attempt to destroy their bunker. This proved disastrous, as the roof was covered with tar and gas, and a blistering fire broke out.” “By the time the fire had been contained, nearly an entire block of homes in Philadelphia had burned down.” “In 1981, MOVE relocated to a row house at 6221 Osage Avenue in the Cobbs Creek section of West Philadelphia. Neighbors complained to the city for years about trash around their building, confrontations with neighbors, and bullhorn announcements of sometimes obscene political messages at all hours of the day and night by the group’s members. The last straw for MOVE’s neighbors was the erection of a fortified “heavy timber” bunker on the roof of 6221 Osage Avenue, with “holes that were gun ports.” On April 30, 1985, the neighbors, at wit’s end, appealed to Governor Richard Thornburgh in a high-profile news conference. Finally spurred by the appeal to the governor, Mayor W. Wilson Goode Sr. requested a tactical plan for removing the occupants of 6221 Osage Avenue… A fire began milliseconds after the bomb blast when friction-heated metal fragments penetrated a gas can on the roof and ignited gasoline vapors. The ensuing fire killed eleven of the people in the house; John Africa, five other adults, and five children aged 7 to 13. Only two people survived the bombing, Ramona Africa, then 29, and a child, Birdie Africa, then 13. Both were badly burned. Whether the MOVE members who remained in the house were pinned down by gunfire and unable to get out remains an open question, and an open wound in the still-lingering controversy about the events of May 13, 1985… One disastrous decision begat another. Firefighters were on the scene throughout the day but took no immediate action. Police Commissioner Sambor and Fire Commissioner William C. Richmond had decided to let the fire burn as a tactical weapon to force the occupants from the house. Unfortunately, their communications were badly garbled, and the fire burned for more than an hour before the firefighters began to attack the flames. By this time, 6:32 p.m., the fire was out of control. Conventional firefighting failed, and by dawn the next morning, the 6200 block of Osage was obliterated. The fire spread and eventually destroyed approximately 65 nearby houses on Osage Avenue and nearby Pine Street. Although firefighters had earlier drenched the building before the bombing after the fire broke out, officials said they feared that MOVE would shoot at the firefighters, so they were held back.”
On 5/13/1997 a Harveys Lake, Pennsylvania board and care facility fire killed ten residents and injured three of the twenty-one residents and one staff member in the building at the time. The fire most likely started on a screened-in porch from smoking materials in the wood-frame two-story plus basement structure at approximately 9:10 p.m. at the Country Manor Personal Care Home. “Six people were trapped in the home on Queen of Peace Road and died. Three were pronounced dead at hospitals a short time later. The 10th victim died about two months later. Police believe the blaze was started by a mentally ill resident who, police say, threw a match on a porch chair. He was deemed mentally incompetent and was never charged.”
On 5/13/1903 a Buffalo, New York firefighter died at “a massive fire at the Diamond Mills and Elevator Company that destroyed the mill, 22 freight cars, and many other houses. Several buildings were damaged by the heat and flying embers. Engine 21, which had been moved to temporary quarters near the waterfront, was the first to arrive at the blaze. As Engine 21 was stretching hose lines to protect exposed homes across the street, a leak in one line caused the firefighter to attempt to repair it. The line suddenly burst and struck him with terrific force in the stomach, and knocked him to the ground, striking his head against the pavement. He was later taken to Emergency Hospital where he lived for a few hours but never regained his senses. His skull was fractured in the fall, along with other internal injuries.”
On 5/13/1908 a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania firefighter died “while operating at a fire in a sash factory after an overhead power line burned through and landed on him. As he tried to run, he inadvertently grabbed a bare part of the wire and became entangled in it. As he twisted his body to free himself, he was electrocuted.”
On 5/13/1913 a Stratford, Ontario, Canada firefighter and two law enforcement officers were killed at a church fire. “The Knox Presbyterian Church on Ontario Street was struck by lightning, just after midnight. As firefighters arrived on the scene, they found that fire had completely encircled the steeple, and was fanned by high winds. Having no ladder truck, they fought the fire from hose lines and ground ladders. As the firefighter and the two police officers were moving a ladder, around 1:30, a large section of the steeple crashed down on them, killing all three.”
On 5/13/1925 a Fort Worth, Texas firefighter “died shortly after midnight. He had been fighting a fire at the Ardmore Rooming House on West Weatherford. He was heading into a smoke-filled hallway on the second floor when he collapsed on the steps. He died a few minutes later while en route to the hospital. His death was attributed to smoke inhalation.”
On 5/13/1993 a methane gas explosion in the Secunda coal mine in South Africa killed fifty.
On 5/13/1978 a fire at the Yiba Commercial Center killed thirty-three in Ankara, Turkey.
On 5/13/1972 the trendy nightclub, Playtown Cabaret, in Osaka, Japan fire killed 118 people, and only 48 people survived. Inadvertently, an electrician set off a fire that reached oil-soaked rags in a nearby storage room that quickly spread up the elevator shafts and the outside walls of the building. “The fire exits were hidden by drapes and almost no one in the club found them.”
On 5/13/1910 the Jackman, Maine Armstrong House Hotel fire killed one of the eighteen people who were sleeping in the building.
On 5/13/1907 while under construction the 444’ long 4,500 passenger Steamer City of Cleveland caught fire just before daylight in Detroit, Michigan.
On 5/13/1899 the large six-story Kennard business block was badly damaged by a morning fire in Manchester, NH.
