On 4/1/1853 the first salaried fire department was established in Cincinnati, Ohio; 444 men were hired as part-time firefighters. However, it was not until 1873 that firefighters were hired on a full-time basis and required to remain on duty in the engine houses.
On 4/1/1898 a Toronto, Ontario, Canada firefighter “died after being buried by hot bricks from an explosion and collapse at the George Hoe’s and Sons window blind factory fire at 276 Davenport Road.”
On 4/1/1925 two Swainsboro, Georgia firefighters “died from the injuries they sustained when a brick wall collapsed at a fire at the Swainsboro Grocery Company and they were pinned underneath it. A police officer was also caught in the collapse.”
On 4/1/1979 a Minneapolis, Minnesota “died in a dwelling fire at 14 Melbourne Street Southeast when he was caught in the basement by a sudden build-up of heat and smoke. His exit was impeded by debris in the basement and by a failing air supply in his mask, he was unable to escape and succumbed before he could be rescued.”
On 4/1/1993 a Chatham, New Jersey firefighter “was crushed by a falling chimney in a residential structure fire; an 81-year-old occupant also perished.”
On 4/1/2019 twenty-four firefighters died in a forest fire in SW China’s Sichuan. The fire started at an altitude of over 3,800 meters above sea level, and 689 firefighters were sent to the scene.
On 4/1/2017 five children died in Spearfish (western) South Dakota, near the Wyoming border in an early morning multi-family house fire. They may have been attending a sleepover. The victims, ages 6 to 9, died after the fire broke out around 4:30 a.m. in a home.
On 4/1/2015 a biodiesel facility near Stuart, Florida was heavily damaged by a fire at 3041 SE Dominica Terrace; four 10,000-gallon tanks of biodiesel caught fire at Viesel Fuel. “At one point the fire was contained, but following two explosions it flared up again after 2:00 p.m. … spread to the methanol tank that was adjacent to those four ten thousand biodiesel tanks.” “According to the company, Viesel Fuel has pioneered the enzyme technology to produce biodiesel from a variety of inexpensive, high FFA (free fatty acid) feedstocks.”
On 4/1/2015 an explosion and fire on a Pemex oil rig platform in the Gulf of Mexico killed four, injured sixteen, and forced the evacuation of 300 workers on the shallow-water Abkatun Permanente platform in the Campeche Sound at the state-run oil company facility.
On 4/1/2015 an accidental carbon monoxide exposure killed a single father and seven children in a one-story wood-frame house in Princess Anne, Maryland on the Eastern Shore about 60 miles southeast of Annapolis. The family was using a generator after the power was shut off to the home; “a generator with no gasoline was found in the kitchen.” “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says unintentional exposure to carbon monoxide caused an average of 430 deaths per year nationwide…”
On 4/1/1972 seven Air Force crewmen died, and eight civilians were injured when a burning B-52 bomber crashed into a residential neighborhood and sprayed homes with a sheet of burning jet fuel, and created a 150-foot crater a quarter-mile from the McCoy Air Force Base runway in Orlando Florida.
On 4/1/1947 an insane asylum fire in Steilacoom, Washington left one dead and two critically injured.
On 4/1/1902 three big warehouses of the Peaslee-Gaulbert Paint and Varnish Company in Louisville, Kentucky were destroyed by a fire that “is generally thought to have been due to spontaneous combustion.”
On 4/1/1902 a house fire left six dead in Prosser Hollow, Pennsylvania.
On 4/1/1895 the Loring & Jones Tannery boiler explosion in Woburn, Massachusetts killed five a few minutes before 7:00 a.m.
On 4/1/1893 a 4:00 a.m. fire at the Higgins Hotel killed six and extended to the Higgins Cigar Factory; Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh Station; J. Leroy building and a grocery store were all destroyed in Bradford, Pennsylvania.
On 4/1/1893 the Nelson Mine explosion killed ten around 7:00 a.m. near Shamokin, Pennsylvania
On 4/1/1892 a seven-story building collapsed during a severe storm killing seven in Chicago, Illinois at Halstead and Hearce Streets.
Today is April Fools’ Day, English pranksters begin popularizing the annual tradition of playing practical jokes on each other in the 1700s. “Although the day, also called All Fools’ Day, has been celebrated for several centuries by different cultures, its exact origins remain a mystery. Some historians speculate that April Fools’ Day dates back to 1582, when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, as called for by the Council of Trent in 1563. People who were slow to get the news or failed to recognize that the start of the New Year had moved to January 1 and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes.”