On 1/4/1885 seventeen patients died when the Eastern Illinois Insane Hospital in Kankakee burned at about 4:00 a.m. The fire was “drawn through the network of flues, along the halls, and stairways to every portion of the doomed” south infirmary building. “On a frigid Sunday, a strong odor of smoke on the first floor of the Men’s Infirmary building at Kankakee’s Eastern Illinois State Hospital for the Insane was detected. It was shortly after 4:00 a.m. By the time the sun rose that Sunday, only the thick stone walls of the building would remain; and 17 of the 45 patients being treated there would be dead. It was evident from the moment of the discovery of the fire that the building was doomed, and in the brief time in which it remained habitable, all efforts were directed to the succor of the patients. Attendants began to evacuate the 24 patients who were housed on the first floor but encountered an unexpected difficulty: the extremely cold (12 degrees below zero) weather. One attendant related that “as soon as the cold air struck them, many of them turned back and tried to get into their rooms again. They seemed dazed and dreaded the cold more than the fire. Aided by fellow attendants who managed to keep the evacuated patients outside the burning building (“I brought one man out three times,” one recalled). Meanwhile, smoke from the fire was filling the second floor of the building, where 21 patients — most of them bedridden and seriously ill — were located. A staff member ascended the front stairway and was able to awaken the second-floor attendants whose room was at the head of the stairs. He sent them down the stairs and tried to move farther into the open ward on the second floor, but he was driven back by the choking smoke. The superintendent of the hospital, soon arrived on the scene, where he found flames billowing from windows on both floors. “I got two men with a ladder and raised it to the second floor,” he told a coroner’s jury later that day. After an unsuccessful attempt to enter one smoke-filled room through its window, he said, “I heard a patient in the next room … calling for help; got the ladder to his window and went up and broke out the glass; he came and climbed down. This seemed to be all that was possible to do there.” The patient rescued, two others who fled the smoke by climbing down a rope of knotted bedsheets, and a fourth man whose means of escape was not recorded were the only second-floor survivors. The 17 victims, ranging in age from 22 to 60 years of age, apparently died from inhaling the thick, toxic smoke that traveled up from the basement. Examination of their remains in the building wreckage indicated that most were overcome while still in their beds. A coroner’s jury began gathering evidence and testimony on Sunday afternoon and rendered its verdict on the following Tuesday: “we find that the deceased came to their deaths … by smoke and fire originating over a hot-air furnace … the woodwork being in too-close proximity to the furnace, and the space between the furnace roof and the floor joist above the same being enclosed with masonry, preventing a free circulation of air.” The jury declined to place blame on the hospital staff, finding that “they did all in their power to save life and property with the means at hand.” The verdict noted that “the means at hand” were virtually nonexistent: “We also find a lack of suitable fire alarms, fire escapes, and appliances for extinguishing fire in the detached wards.” At that time, the hospital had no organized fire brigade, nor any extinguishing equipment beyond water buckets. (In fact, the only source of water to fight the fire in the infirmary was the faucets in its washroom sinks!) One week after the fire, the hospital’s board of trustees asked the state legislature for an emergency appropriation to replace the infirmary, correct furnace defects and install fire escapes in other buildings, and purchase firefighting equipment (hoses and a hose cart). A properly equipped fire brigade was soon formed from hospital employees. It quickly evolved into an effective firefighting force for use not only on hospital grounds but in less well-prepared and equipped surrounding communities. The infirmary building, where the fire occurred, was rebuilt using the existing stone walls and remained in use as a patient residence for many years; it was demolished in 1975.”
On 1/4/1918 a Manhattan, New York (FDNY) firefighter died while operating on the third floor of 305 East 43rd Street. On the fifth floor was a six-ton safe resting on fire-damaged timbers. This caused the fourth and fifth floors to collapse to the third floor. The company was pinned in the collapse. One firefighter was killed instantly in the collapse which also injured the rest of the crew.
On 1/4/1919 a Bronx, New York (FDNY) firefighter “died as a result of critical burns sustained while operating at a truck fire on December 28, 1918, at Boston Post Road and Bouck Avenue.”
On 1/4/1932 a Scranton, Pennsylvania firefighter was killed when he fell from a ladder while operating at a fire. “He had responded to a two-alarm fire at the Home Furniture Company 322 Lackawanna Avenue. While working from a ground ladder operating a hose line into a third-floor window in the front of the building, he attempted to shut down the line when the hose kicked while in his grasp causing him to lose his balance and fall to the ground. As a result of this tragedy, ladder belts were purchased by the city and carried on each apparatus.”
On 1/4/1937 an Indianapolis, Indiana firefighter died at a fire in a grocery store on East Michigan Street, three firefighters had just forced a rear door and were preparing to put a line into operation from the basement stairs when an explosion occurred. He was blown down the stairs into the basement, and was successfully rescued, but died before he could be taken to a hospital.
On 1/4/1947 two Manhattan, New York (FDNY) firefighters were trapped and killed in a collapse of a seven-story loft, and ten other firefighters were injured. They were trapped when the roof and three floors fell. The fire started on the fourth floor, which stored slippers. Over thirty-one firefighters were treated for various injuries at this four-alarm fire.
On 1/4/1981 a Marshfield, Wisconsin firefighter died while operating in the basement of the Clinique Lounge fire, in the 600 block of South Central Avenue.
On 1/4/1993 two Memphis, Tennessee firefighters “were critically injured when the roof collapsed during a fire at the Pilgrims Hope Baptist Church at 3084 Woodrow Street at 1:58 p.m. on December 26, 1992. They became trapped beneath debris after the roof collapsed and were severely burned. They were transported to the burn unit at the Regional Medical Center, where the first firefighter died on January 4th, and the second firefighter would succumb to his injuries on January 11, 1993. It had been determined that the fire was arson. The suspect, Michael Lee Allen, 26, a parolee told investigators that he broke into the building to escape the cold and set the fire after ‘huffing’ intoxicating chemicals. According to authorities, he said he was shocked when the rubber cement glue and other chemicals exploded after he threw a match. He scrambled out a window to escape the fire after the explosion. Allen, who was released from prison on November 30th, told officers he broke into the church Christmas night by removing an air-conditioner. Allen has a long criminal record and no permanent address.”
On 1/4/1994 a Rutherford, New Jersey firefighter was killed when he became trapped on the second floor by a rapidly advancing fire in a balloon frame house. “His company had been conducting search operations and horizontal ventilation in the house with only light fire and smoke conditions. The fire was initially located in the basement but extended to the attic. Conditions rapidly deteriorated as the pressurized heat and smoke broke out of concealed spaces above the firefighters and from a dropped tin ceiling on the floor below them. Two personnel were able to escape through second-floor windows as evacuation signals were sounded. However, one firefighter became disoriented and entangled in a bed frame on the second floor and was unable to escape. A rescue team entered the second floor via a window and quickly reached him, but he died from acute smoke inhalation and burns. His facepiece was not on when he was found, his self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) straps had failed, and the personal alert safety system (PASS) device was in the off position. A New Jersey Division of Fire Safety report indicates that the balloon frame construction, ventilation simultaneously below and above hidden fire areas, and operations of fog pattern streams in the basement may have all contributed to the rapidly deteriorating conditions faced by the fire crews on the second floor.
On 1/4/2015 around 3:30 a.m. fire destroyed three floors of a building in Saint Josse-ten-Node, Belgium.
On 1/4/1930 in Lenoir, North Carolina a heating oil explosion and fire in a house killed two people after one of the victims had lit “a fire in the living room stove this morning and later went back to replenish it. He thought it had gone out and poured oil on the coals from a five-gallon can. An explosion followed, and the can was knocked from his hand. Oil poured from the can over the floor of the room and soon the house was in flames.”
On 1/4/1916 an electric light used by a workman at the Lake Ruth Manufacturing Company in Spotswood, New Jersey caused an explosion and fire that destroyed the plant. The fire started in a room containing several hundred gallons of flammable liquids including naphtha; two employees were injured.
On 1/4/1905 the Berlin, New Hampshire conflagration destroyed the four-story Clément’s Opera House block, two Gagnon blocks, the Thorndike Hotel, Brook’s drug store, three storehouses, a stable, and threatened the entire business district at 9:15 p.m. The fire started in the Opera House block on a bitter cold, with temperatures below zero.
On 1/4/1904 in Jewett City, Connecticut the Lewis Hotel was destroyed by fire with temperatures 22 degrees below zero, and a brisk wind was blowing from the northwest in the early morning.
On 1/4/1894 seven businesses were destroyed by fire at 1:00 a.m. in the opera house block in Schell City, Missouri.
On 1/4/1837 the Detroit (Michigan) Free Press was destroyed by fire just after 3:00 a.m. when the Sheldon Block on the north side of Jefferson Avenue, between Griswold and Shelby Streets, burned.
On 1/4/1933 the Steam Ship (SS) Atlantique passenger liner fire killed eighteen while crossing the English Channel. A 717-foot-long, 42,000 gross tons ship. The mysterious fire broke out in several cabins simultaneously while sailing without passengers. Sabotage by the French Communist Party was suspected.
On 1/4/1990 two trains collide in Sangi, Pakistan killing over 200 and injuring an estimated 700 of the 1,400 passengers. The 16-car passenger train crashed into a 67-car freight train that was parked overnight on the track.
On 1/4/1987 a high-speed Amtrak passenger train collided with three Conrail locomotives and derailed, killing twelve people and injuring more than 160 near Essex, Maryland.
On 1/4/1887 a train wreck killed nineteen when a Baltimore & Ohio passenger train en route from New York to Chicago collided with an eastern-bound freight train seven miles east of Tiffin, Ohio at 4:00 a.m. A fire broke out in the smoking car and soon spread to the other cars.
On 1/4/1871 Patrick Raymond was appointed Chief of the City of Cambridge Fire Department in Massachusetts. Chief Raymond served in this position for eight years and earned the distinction of being the first African American fire chief in the United States.