1934 — March 24, Fire, Federal Transient Bureau lodging building, Lynchburg, VA– 22
Compiled by Wayne Blanchard; last edit 12-13-2024 for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/
— 22 Lynchburg Life Saving Crew. “History of the Lynchburg Life Saving Crew…1934.”
— 22 Lynchburg Museum (Shiflett). “The Federal Transient Bureau Fire of 1934.” 12-31-2015.
— 22 NFPA. “Fires Causing Large Loss of Life.” 1983 NFPA Handbook, 1984, p, 34.
— 22 Ward. “Hotel Fires: Landmarks in Flames…,” Firehouse, March 1978, p. 41.[1]
— 19 NFPA. “Lynchburg Transient Bureau Fire.” NFPA Quarterly, V27/N4, Apr 1934, 301
Narrative Information
Lynchburg Museum. “The Federal Transient Bureau Fire of 1934.” 12-31-2015:
“On March 24th 1934, twenty-two men died due to a fire at the Federal Transient Bureau building in downtown Lynchburg. The Federal Transient Bureau opened its doors to the poor and homeless on December 18th, 1933 in a two story building on the corner of Twelfth and Church Streets. Its purpose was to feed and house occupants during the Great Depression and on the morning of the fire, one- hundred and ninety men were using the facility. The cook for the Bureau had arisen early that morning to prepare breakfast when he inadvertently spilled a pan of water into a vat of boiling grease which caused a fiery explosion. The grease fire rapidly spread, eating through the dry wood supports and cardboard partitions of the building. To make matters worse, there were no fire escapes on the building since city code did not require them on two-story dwellings at that time.
“All of the windows in the second story of the Bureau were covered with wooden planks to prevent people from breaking the glass and to stop people in nearby buildings from peering in. The men located on the ground floor were more fortunate and most were able to escape through the front doors. Once the boards covering the upstairs windows were broken, men came spilling out. Those that were afraid to jump were pushed onto the snow covered sidewalk below. A police officer walking his beat came upon the scene and sounded the alarm. Fire Chief Rapp and the men from the Fifth Street Station could see the flames spurting from the roof of the Federal Transient Bureau building when they pulled out of the firehouse.
“It was difficult for the drivers of the fire engines to position their trucks near the burning building as the streets and sidewalks were filled with men who were suffering from burns and broken bones from jumping out of the windows. In the fifteen minutes from the start of the fire until the sounding of the alarm, thirteen were already confirmed dead. One more passed away en route to the hospital and three others died over the weekend from their injuries. The final total reached twenty-two as all of Lynchburg’s hospitals labored to save the remaining injured survivors. An army veteran who served during World War I commented that the scene at the Virginia Baptist Hospital was ‘like that of a field hospital in a combat zone.’ Those that had escaped the fire unharmed were sent to the Salvation Army and given food until the City Armory could be adapted into a suitable shelter. This fire received national press coverage and brought scores of telegrams and telephone calls into the city with requests for information about relatives who might have stayed in the building.
“The youngest fatality from the fire was a fourteen year old boy who had come from North Carolina for work. He was on his way home when he decided to stay overnight in Lynchburg due to the snow. Panic and the sealed windows were labeled as major factors in the high death toll by officials and to this day, the Federal Transient Bureau fire is considered one of the worse fires to ever occur in Lynchburg due to the loss of life.”
National Fire Protection Association: “Nineteen men died and 67 others were injured in Lynchburg, Va., when a fire at 4:50 A.M., March 24, 1934 swept through the Federal Transient Bureau quarters for homeless men in a converted mercantile building, altogether unsuitable for use as a barracks. Factors responsible were inadequate and obstructed exit facilities, overcrowding, lack of fire drills, no inside alarm system, delay in calling the fire department due to attempt of employees to fight the fire, failure to provide a vent flue for the stove where the fire started, and omission of fire stopping at the abandoned elevator shaft over the kitchen.
“The building in which the fire occurred was a two-story and basement brick-joisted structure erected about ten years ago for mercantile occupancy and divided into two sections by a fire wall with an opening on each floor protected by a fire door. There were no stairways or exits from the front section, making it necessary for men sleeping there to go through the fire door to reach the two stairways in the rear portion.
“The front section…had originally been a show room for a store, and on two sides there were large plate glass windows which could not be opened. In order to give the men privacy these windows were boarded up to a height of four feet.
“The fire started in the small basement kitchen, occupying space which was formerly the basement landing of the elevator shaft, but which had been floored over and ceiled below the floor with pine boarding. The old weight shaft to the roof was left open and acted as a flue, quickly spreading the fire to the floors above.
“The fire occurred when the cook poured water into hot grease, causing it to boil over and ignite. The hood over the cooking range had been built for a smaller stove and there was no vent pipe to the outside, which would have carried off the heat. Flames flashed to the woodwork above the stove and spread through the weight shaft to the floors above. The cook and his helper used extinguishers in the kitchen and on the first floor, but could not check the fire in the shaft and were finally driven out.
“Apparently the first notification the 190 sleeping men had was when some of them smelled smoke. The two stairways in the rear section were almost immediately cut off. It was while trying to escape down these stairways that many of the victims were trapped. Others could not reach the windows in the smoke and darkness. Many were injured by jumping. The first alarm was sounded by a policeman at 5:05 a.m..” (NFPA. “Lynchburg Transient Bureau Fire,” 1934, 301.)
Newspaper
March 25, Frederick Post, MD: “Lynchburg, Va, March 25. – The lives of fourteen persons were snuffed out and at least 80 others were injured and burned, many seriously, when grease boiling over on a hot stove turned the Federal Transient Bureau into a blazing inferno early Saturday. It was a scene of horror for the hundred odd others who escaped with their lives into the frigid atmosphere of the March dawn on snow-covered streets, many only scantily clad.
“The brick walls of the building, two stories in front and three in the rear, were left standing but the building itself was gutted, the floors on which about 190 men had been sleeping falling in within a short time. The structure had been used as a furniture store and a women’s wear shop prior to conversion for use as a place to take care of transients under the Federal emergency relief administration….
“The bodies, some of them charred apparently beyond hope of recognition, were carried to Lynchburg undertaking while the injured were carried to two hospitals in every available ambulance, hearse, truck and private car. One hospital, where 70 patients had been admitted, reported that possibly one-third of them were seriously burned….
“William Rash, the cook, said he had begun preparing breakfast for the estimated 200 occupants of the building when the grease boiled over on the stove and quickly set fire to the building. Two stories above the fire, sleeping on cots only a few feet apart, lay 200 men….At the first call of ‘fire,’ the men became panic-stricken. A high board wall surrounded the windows of their sleeping quarters and the men began tearing this down to leap into the street. Some dived to the street fifteen feet below. Others clung to the window-sills and dropped. Policemen reported seeing some of the men clinging to trolley wires before they fell. All those who jumped were badly hurt. Many had broken legs and arms in addition to burns they had sustained.” (Frederick Post (MD). “14 Perish in Transient Home at Lynchburg,” March 25, 1934.)
Sources
Frederick Post, MD. “14 Perish in Transient Home at Lynchburg,” March 25, 1934, p. 8. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=12216720
Gettysburg Times, PA. “Ex-Convict Who Saved Lives of Six Tired of Hero Role,” March 29, 1934, p. 9. At: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=4875197
Lynchburg Life Saving Crew. “History of the Lynchburg Life Saving Crew, Founded in 1934.” Accessed 3-27-2013 at: http://www.rescue9.org/historyofllsc.html
Lynchburg Museum (Kaitlin Shiflett). “The Federal Transient Bureau Fire of 1934.” 12-31-2015. Accessed 12-13-2024 at:
https://www.lynchburgmuseum.org/blog/2015/12/31/the-federal-transient-bureau-fire-of-1934
National Fire Protection Association. “Fires Causing Large Loss of Life.” Handbook of Fire Protection (11th Ed.). Boston, MA: NFPA, 1954, pp. 33-36.
National Fire Protection Association. “Lynchburg Transient Bureau Fire.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 27, No. 4, April 1934, pp. 301-302.
Ward, Neale. “Hotel Fires: Landmarks in Flames, History’s Famous Hotel Fires,” Firehouse, March 1978, pp. 40-45.
[1] Ward incorrectly notes the date as March 4, 1924.