6/9/1975 a fire in detention hospital killed ten prisoners and one guard in Sanford FL at the Seminole County (Florida) Jail after burning urethane mattresses created a rapid buildup of intense heat and toxic smoke. The evacuation route was blocked by approximately one hundred unclaimed bicycles. The jail keys had been left on the floor of fire origin; the prisoners could not escape from their locked cells.
6/9/1927 a Butte, Montana firefighter “died from an overdose of smoke and gases that he inhaled at the Ryan Fruit Company’s warehouse fire. After battling the blaze for over 3 hours in the smoke-filled structure, he returned to the fire station and complained to his co-workers that he was feeling ill. He collapsed and despite all efforts by his fellow fire fighters to resuscitate him, he died.”
6/9/1935 a Bristol, CT firefighter died of the injuries he sustained after being caught in a wall collapse, while operating at a fire.
6/9/1949 three Saint Paul, MN firefighters were crushed to death by the collapse of an interior wall and paper bales at a fire in Waldorf Paper Company warehouse, Wabasha & Vandalia.
6/9/1950 a Los Angeles, CA firefighter “died after suffering a heart attack while operating at a structure fire. His Company had been dispatched to a fire at the Specialty Record Company, at two-story commercial building at 1107 El Centro. He was overcome while standing near a doorway from which clouds of smoke were billowing out. Rescue Unit No. 27 was called, and its members worked over him for some time without avail. He had died before arrival at Georgia Street Receiving Hospital.”
6/9/2011Camden NJ a three-story abandoned tire warehouse 12-alarm fire started around 4:00 p.m. and extended to twelve homes in the blocks bounded by Mount Vernon Street, Mount Ephraim Avenue, Chestnut Street and Louis Street, seven families, a total of twenty-six people, were displaced.
6/9/2009 the Slim Jim factory ammonia explosion and fire in Garner, N.C. left three dead and thirty-eight injured. “The ammonia is used to refrigerate meat before it’s turned into Slim Jims.”
6/9/1977 a night club fire killed forty-one, Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
6/9/1955 Seaside Heights, NJ four blocks of beachfront concessions were destroyed by fire; at least 84 amusements and food stands were leveled.
6/9/1946 nineteen guests at Canfield Hotel died in fire in Dubuque, Iowa that started about 11:30 p.m. in a closet near the cocktail lounge on the ground floor and extended to upward floors the four-story section of the hotel built in 1891.
6/9/1930 a dynamite explosion in the tunnel 200 feet below the bed of the Detroit River killed six and injured ten in Detroit, MI.
6/9/1902 Saratoga, NY a hotel fire killed eight and extended to the business district.
6/9/1902 Chicago, IL a fire originated in the basement rapidly spread to the upper stories through the elevator shaft and destroyed the sanitarium at the corner of Wabash Avenue and Twenty-First Street operated by the St. Luke’s Society. The fire killed nine men and one woman and injured about thirty persons. “The society occupied the building which was long known as the Hotel Woodruff, and for a brief period as the Hotel Lancaster. By far the greater portion of the patients received in the institution were those seeking cure from the drink habit and those who were addicted to the use of drugs. When the fire broke out there was on the fifth floor a number of patients suffering from delirium tremens and some who were deranged by drugs. Several of those were strapped to their beds and it was found impossible to save them, so rapidly did the fire spread through the building.”
6/9/1898 Rockton, SC two warehouses at the depot were destroyed by an incendiary fire.
6/9/1772 British customs vessel, Gaspee, was burned by colonists off Rhode Island before the start of the American Revolution. “The Gaspee was pursuing American Captain Thomas Lindsey’s packet from Newport, when it ran aground off Namquit Point in Providence’s Narragansett Bay on June 9. That evening, John Brown, an American merchant angered by high British taxes on his goods, rowed out to the Gaspee with eight long-boats with muffled oars and as a many as 67 colonists and seized control of the ship, shooting its Scottish captain, Lieutenant William Dudingston, in the abdomen. After sending the wounded captain and his crew to shore at Pawtuxet, the “Americans” set the Gaspee on fire.”