FIRE LIEUTENANT KILLED IN FLOOR COLLAPSE DURING AUTOMOTIVE PAINT SHOP FIRE – SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA – AUGUST 25, 1932

Fire Lieutenant Killed in Floor Collapse During Automotive Paint Shop Fire – Scranton, Pennsylvania – August 25, 1932

On August 25, 1932, Scranton Fire Lieutenant Hugh A. Flaherty of Engine 9 was killed during a second alarm fire in an automotive paint shop when a wall collapsed, and the second floor dropped onto the first floor where a group of firefighters were conducting overhaul operations. After knocking down the main body of fire, several companies of firefighters were working in the building looking for hot spots when the collapse occurred. Fellow firefighters, policemen and onlookers all worked to help free more than a dozen men trapped in the debris. Lieutenant Flaherty was found at the bottom of the wreckage. He was the last to be found but was alive. He was rushed to a hospital where he died minutes after arrival. The fire was later determined to have been caused by spontaneous combustion of oil and paint-soaked rags in the shop. The fire collapse that killed Lieutenant Flaherty and injured eleven other firefighters was the worst accident in the history of the Scranton Fire Department at the time. Lieutenant Hugh A. Flaherty was the third firefighter to die in the line of duty in the history of the Scranton Fire Department.

The structure involved in the incident was a two- and three-story mixed construction building occupied by Schlesser’s Automobile Paint Shop located at 1002 Scranton Street in the West Scranton section of the city. The front section of the building was two stories constructed of brick walls on a cement floor with wood joist upper floor and roof. The rear half of the building was three stories of wood frame and a basement with a cement floor. The main building measured 50 feet wide by 70 feet deep. A smaller two-story wood frame automobile paint shop was attached to the main building at the Bravo/Charlie corner and had an inclined ramp to a 20-foot-wide rear alley, Richards Place. Gasoline pumps were on Side Alpha facing 60-foot-wide Scranton Street. A two-story wood frame dwelling was separated by a narrow passageway on Side Bravo. A four unit row of two-story wood frame dwellings was also separated by a narrow passageway on Side Charlie. Side Delta was 40-foot-wide South Chestnut Avenue. A hydrant was located directly across Scranton Street from the building. The building was not equipped with an automatic fire sprinkler system or fire alarm system. The nearest fire alarm call box was located a short distance away at the corner with McNichols Court.

Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 U.S. census, Scranton is the largest city in Northeastern Pennsylvania and the Scranton–Wilkes-Barre–Hazleton Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had a population of 562,037 as of 2020. The city is located about 75 miles north of Allentown and 60 miles south of Binghamton, New York in the Upper Susquehanna River Valley. During the 1800s, mining and iron and steel production precipitated the city’s early rapid growth. During this period, the city rapidly transformed from a small, agrarian-based village of people with New England roots to a multicultural, industrial-based city. From 1860 to 1900, the city’s population increased more than tenfold. Most new immigrants, such as the Irish, Italians, South Germans and Polish, came to find work to the numerous factories and industries in the city. By the mid-1930s, the city population had swelled beyond 140,000 due to growth in the mining and silk textile industries.

In 1932, the city was protected by the fully paid Scranton Fire Department with 1 chief, 2 assistant chiefs, 6 battalion chiefs, 4 inspectors, 1 hydrant inspector, 2 mechanics and 192 firemen operating on a two-platoon system from 12 fire stations. Apparatus included 9 engine companies, 1 aerial ladder company, 2 city service ladder companies, 4 hose wagons, 1 booster truck, 2 mechanics’ trucks, 1 hydrant service truck, 2 reserve hose trucks, and 2 chief’s cars. The city had a Gamewell telegraph fire alarm system with 264 boxes distributed around the city that were connected to an alarm room at the downtown fire headquarters. Water service was provided by a private water company with water supplied from mountain steams with several reservoirs and pumping stations connected to about 400 miles of water mains with 1,031 fire hydrants distributed around the city. A high pressure hydrant system was available in the high value central business district.

Today the city is protected by the 150 career members of the Scranton Fire Department staffing 5 engine companies, 2 truck companies, 1 rescue company, and 1 command/chief car from 7 fire stations. Held in reserve are 3 engines, 1 truck, 1 rescue, 1 HazMat unit, 1 USAR company, 1 wildland engine, 3 rescue boats, and 1 light and air unit. The department answers an average of about 3000 calls per year. Due to a continued population drop in the late 1900s, several fire companies have been disbanded and several fire stations were closed. Scranton has lost almost half its population since the 1930 U.S. census.

Shortly before 8 a.m. on Thursday, August 25, 1932, Clarence Schuman, one of the partners of the gasoline station that adjoined the auto paint shop, was seated on the porch of the adjacent wood frame dwelling of his partner, E. H. Schlesser, reading the morning newspaper. A pedestrian yelled to him that a fire was raging in the paint shop. Schuman turned in the alarm from the fire alarm box at Scranton Street and McNichols Court.

Scranton fire units including Engines 3, 7, & 9, Truck 4, and Hose 3 responded under the command of Battalion Chief Beverly Chase. A moment after they arrived on the scene, an explosion occurred in the paint shop, and within a short time, not only the structure, but two adjoining wood frame dwellings were ablaze, One of the dwellings was that of Schlesser, at 1006 Scranton Street, and the other was a four unit wood frame row house at 104-110 South Chestnut Avenue.

Battalion Chief Chase immediately sent in a second alarm, and this brought Superintendent of Fire Edmund B. Lewis, Assistant Superintendent William Riley, and Battalion Chiefs Leo Duggan, William Thomas, and William Bauer, with Engines 1, 2, & 4, Truck 2 and Hose 6.

Firemen went to work with three hoselines to extinguish the fires in the wood frame exposure dwellings and attack the main body of fire in the paint shop. When the men were satisfied that all of the occupants of the two exposed dwellings were safe, the firemen centered their efforts on extinguishing the flames in the shop and in less than a half hour the blaze was under control.

With the flames knocked down from the exterior, members of several companies were sent into the shop to begin overhaul and look for hot spots. Lieutenant Hugh Flaherty with a group of members from Engine 9 were working on the first floor pouring water into several areas which were smoldering. Members of Engine 7 were on the second floor wetting down that portion of the building and the roof.

It was only a matter of a few minutes before all of the companies would have started back to their stations, when without warning, the wall on Side Delta of the paint shop began to give way. First, according to Superintendent Lewis, it bulged out. Then it fell back inwards, and a second later it collapsed, carrying the roof and second floor with it. An automobile body, minus the wheels, which had been stored on the second floor, toppled down with the wreckage when the flooring gave way as the building suffered a total global collapse.

A dozen firemen were pinned beneath the debris and could hardly be seen by their comrades and a corps of civilian volunteers who joined in the rescue work. They were taken out one by one and hurried to the hospitals in any available vehicles. Lieutenant Flaherty, the last to be removed from the wreckage, was alive but unconscious when his body was reached. He was rushed to West Side Hospital but died within a few minutes of arrival. Flaherty had suffered a fractured skull and chest injuries after likely being struck by a heavy wooden cross beam.

The most seriously injured included:

• Fireman David J. Davis of Engine 7 – possible broken back, fractured hip, and internal injuries.
• Fireman Winfield Rodney of Engine 9 – crushed chest, possible injury to back, possible fractured ribs.
• Fireman Jonah Smith of Engine 9 – possible fractured skull, ribs, and head injuries.

The seriously injured members of Engine 9 were working at the side of Lieutenant Flaherty when the group was trapped beneath the wreckage. Eight other members received minor injuries that required treatment but not admission to the hospital.

Five members of Engine 1 escaped serious injury or death because they were standing near an unused gasoline tank standard inside the building. When the walls, roof and second floor collapsed, the timbers struck the top of the tank standard and were prevented from hitting the members, who then succeeded in getting out without great difficulty.

While the blaze which brought death to Lieutenant Flaherty and injury to so many of his companions was a two-alarm fire, it was by no means spectacular, or of the character which might be expected to endanger the lives of the firemen. The tragedy occurred when the companies were engaged in wetting down the smoldering timbers in several parts of the paint shop and playing water on the adjoining houses which had been damaged.

Fire Commissioner Lewis immediately began an inquiry into the blaze. Paint shop owner E. H. Schlesser was quoted as having told firemen and the police that when he arrived at the scene from his home that two young men employed by him may have been at work in the shop before the blaze broke out. Rumors circulated in the community that the fire had been started by a blow torch that the men were using in the shop. The investigation prove this to be untrue. Police detectives located the two youths and they both denied being in the shop that morning. They said that Schlesser had instructed them to report to the shop that morning and to wait outside until he arrived, when he would inform them whether or not he would have work for them. They said that they had not worked since the previous Thursday. Schlesser said he had closed the shop at about 2:30 p.m. the previous day when he left to attend a baseball game.

Commissioner Lewis said that he was satisfied that the fire originated in a portion of the paint shop where oil-soaked rags and cotton waste were kept, and that spontaneous combustion ignited the materials. The explosion, he said, occurred when heat reached several large containers filled with paint material.

The Commissioner noted that an amazing feature of the fire was that there was not a trace of smoke or flame after the collapse of the building. There had been sufficient fire a moment earlier to require the use of three hoselines, but not a drop of water was needed after the building caved in to kill Flaherty and injure his comrades.

Lieutenant Hugh A. Flaherty, age 50, was a 19-year member of the Scranton Fire Department. Born in County Durham, England in 1882, he emigrated as a newborn to the United States. As an adult, he worked as a coal laborer, and later married Margaret McGuire. He was appointed to the Scranton Fire Department as a fireman on July 14, 1913, by Mayor John Van Bergen. On August 1, 1926, he was promoted to lieutenant and assigned to Engine 9 on North Main Avenue. He organized the firemen’s “Good Will” club, was the Scranton representative of the International Association of Fire Fighters, and manager of the fire department’s baseball team. He was survived by his wife, Margaret, and nine children.

Funeral services for Lieutenant Flaherty were held on August 29 at St. Vincent de Paul’s Church followed by a procession of over 200 firemen and police officers, in addition to many friends. He was buried at Cathedral Cemetery in North Scranton.

The name of Lieutenant Hugh Flaherty has been inscribed on the base of the Benjamin Franklin Firefighter Memorial located on the grounds of City Hall on Mulberry Street in Scranton. The memorial features a bronze statue of a firefighter atop a granite base inscribed with the names of the 33 Scranton firefighters that have given their lives in the line of duty.

The site of the fatal fire is now occupied by the Jackson Heights senior citizens apartment complex. There is no memorial marker at the site.

Commentary:

While exact details of the fire building are unknown, it would appear likely that the structure was of braced wood frame construction. From the descriptions available in news stories and notations from the 1920 Sanborn fire insurance map of the area, it is suspected that the legacy wood frame structure was likely originally built as a barn or stable. Many wooden structures of that era were often built using braced wood frame techniques. Sometimes also referred to as post-and-beam or post-and-girt construction, braced wood frame structures are assembled with large diameter timber corner posts and horizontal cross beams often called girts that are joined together with mortise and tenon joints. Diagonal bracing is also used to stiffen the frame and prevent racking of the structure. This type of construction allowed for commercial buildings to have open interior floor plans desirable for occupancies like barns, stables, garages and workshops.

Braced wood frame structures that have been exposed to heavy fire involvement are prone to sudden collapse, often resulting in an inward-outward global collapse of the entire building as the second floor falls into the structure while the first floor is pushed outward to the street. The mortise and tenon joints are the weak link in the structure as they are easily destroyed as fire is drawn into the joint and weakens the connection. Braced wood frame structures also suffer from a common construction flaw as the first floor framing was often undersized to carry the load of the upper stories of the building.

Fire personnel must be trained to recognize the potential for collapse in legacy wood frame buildings that have been subjected to heavy fire involvement. Braced wood frame structures rarely give sufficient warning that they are about to collapse. Firefighters should be alert to bulges in the sidewalls, especially at the juncture between the first floor and the upper levels of a braced wood frame structure which indicate impending failure of the mortise and tenon joint at the posts and girts.

We have attached photos from the incident and a detail from the 1920 Sanborn fire insurance map of the area showing the configuration of the auto shop and the surrounding exposures.

We have attached a BCFS group page article on braced wood frame construction:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/192218352449074/permalink/1620160352988193/

Honor the service of Lieutenant Hugh Flaherty by studying the weaknesses of braced wood frame construction and by touring a braced wood frame structure in your local response district with your crew members today.

Thanks to multiple media sources for the content of this article.

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