1957 — Feb 17, Katie Jane Nursing Home Fire, Warrington, MO — 72
–72 Babcock. “A Place for Old Folks to Live.” Quarterly of [NFPA], V51, N1, July 1957, p. 39.
–72 Barlay, Stephen. Fire: An International Report. VT: Stephen Greene, 1973, p. 193.
–72 NFPA. “Frontispiece.” Quarterly…National Fire Protection Association, 50/4 Apr 1957.
–72 National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996.
–72 NFPA. U.S. Unintentional Fire Death Rates by State. December 2008, p. 22.
–72 National Fire Sprinkler Association. F.Y.I. 1999, 6.
–72 Newspaper Archive. Fires.
–72 Weich. “Cause of…Katie Jane…fire…a mystery.” St. Louis Post Dispatch, 2-17-2007.
–72 Wilson. “Institutional Fire Protection Is Different.” Quarterly…[NFPA] 55/1, July 1961, 32
–71 Kansas City Times. “Missouri Fire Toll at 71.” February 18, 1957.
–71 U.S. Senate. Nursing Home Care in the United States (Report 94-00), Aug, 1975, p. 459.
Narrative Information
Babcock: “The fire shown in [photo which we do not copy] could be used as an example of just about any fire safety weakness which can be named. It is the Warrenton, Missouri nursing home of last February in which 72 aged occupants lost their lives….In the 2-story Annex, where the fire started, a single open stairway discharging into the first story was the only way out of the second story. In the communicating 2-story Main Building to which fire and smoke quickly spread, two open stairways discharging into the first story were the only exits for those in the second story. Because of the open hallways and stairs the Annex and Main Building comprised one large fire area.
“The fire when first seen was at ceiling level in the story of the Annex. Almost immediately the single stairway in the Annex became impassable and within a few minutes smoke and heat had made stairways and corridors in the communicating Main Building unusuable.
“Regulations for nursing home fire safety have recently been adopted in Missouri that include all principal recommendations of the Building Exits Code.” (Babcock. “A Place for Old Folks to Live.” Quarterly of [NFPA], V51, N1, July 1957, pp. 39 & 41.)
Newspaper Archives: “Sunday, February 17, 1957 – A fire swept through a home for the elderly in Warrenton, Missouri, today, killing 72…. NOTE: Inspectors reported that faulty wiring may have caused the blaze.” (Newspaper Archives. Fires.)
NFPA: “Seventy-patients at the Katie Jane Nursing Home, Warrenton, Missouri were killed by fire that destroyed the 2-story brick, wood-joisted building on February 17, 1957. Grossly substandard exit facilities, absence of sprinkler protection for the combustible building and lack of an emergency evacuation plan were among the more flagrant violations of nursing home fire safety responsible for these deaths.” (NFPA Quarterly. “Frontispiece.” 50/4, April 1957.)
US Senate: “Seventy-one out of 149 nursing home residents perished in the Katie Jane Nursing Home from a fire believed to have, been caused by faulty wiring. The home was a 12-story, 05-year-old, former college building constructed of brick exterior on wood joists. It had open stairways, no fire escapes, and fire protection equipment consisting merely of several fire extinguishers. The fire started at 2:30 p.m.. and the fire department arrived 20 minutes later.” (U.S. Senate 1975, 459)
Weich: “Warrenton, Mo. — About 35 worshippers had just finished the third stanza of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” when the cries for help rang out. The Katie Jane Nursing Home was on fire, and the minister and his parishioners hurriedly led 22 residents from the chapel of the doomed care center….
“Seventy-two patients died as rescuers tried to put out the inferno 50 years ago Saturday.
“The cause of the blaze, considered the deadliest nursing home fire in U.S. history, remains a mystery. Some said it was arson; some blamed outdated electrical wiring. Others claimed it began when one of the bedridden residents smoked.
“The swift spread of the flames made attempts to save the residents all but impossible.
“The fire started about 2:40 p.m. in a linen closet on the first floor of the annex, one of two buildings housing the 149 residents of the home, according to the report filed by the Missouri Highway Patrol, newspaper accounts and recent interviews with five people who were there that day.
“Feb. 17, 1957, was a Sunday, and the nursing home was crowded with visitors. The temperature outside rose to 53 degrees, warm enough for some of the residents to crack their windows open. That action was later said to have aided the spread of the fire.
“The Rev. Walter H. Schwane, a Lutheran minister, was leading a hymn on the first floor of the main building when a scream interrupted the chorus.
“The warning came from Charlotte Schowe, who had discovered the fire. She was visiting her uncles, Louis and August Boekemeier, when a wisp of smoke drifted by the door of their room, just south of the linen closet. She went to investigate and saw fire shooting out of a wall near the closet. Schowe ran through the buildings screaming “Fire.”
“When she returned to rescue her uncles about 10 minutes later, she couldn’t get past the dense smoke, she told police. Her uncles never made it out.
“Police reported that the two-story brick buildings were engulfed in flames by the time they got to the scene at 3:08 p.m….
“Lester Kamper, 83, says he is the only Warrenton firefighter left who was at the fire. Kamper couldn’t get there until 5 p.m., and by then, “it was all over,” he said.
“Recovery efforts were hampered in those early hours because of the blaze’s intense heat. Firefighters pumped water on the buildings continuously from Sunday until Tuesday, just to cool things off, he said. Volunteers toted gasoline to the fire truck to keep it running….
“Police determined that the fire was aided by the wood in the building, which was more than 50 years old and “dry as a tinderbox.” The building’s temperature was kept between 85 and 90 degrees to keep the older residents comfortable, and this further dried out the wood, the report said.
“But even if the fire had burned slowly, police said, the lack of safety measures at the nursing home probably would have resulted in a similar death toll. The home had no evacuation plan, no alarm system to warn residents, no fire escapes and no sprinkler system. Bed patients were housed on upper floors and some of the patients were locked in their rooms. The conditions were commonplace at nursing homes at that time.
“The week after the fire, the bodies of 14 of the victims unclaimed by relatives were placed in a common grave at Warrenton Cemetery. The townspeople collected $200 for a monument that lists the names of those buried there plus four others, whose remains never were found….
“One month later, then-Gov. James T. Blair signed legislation giving Missouri’s Division of Health broad powers to establish and enforce minimum standards on safety, comfort and health at convalescent and nursing homes. Later that year, a rule book outlined some of the first regulations for nursing homes. Homes were required to get an annual license and inspection. Facilities were divided into three levels of care and staffing levels were mandated. The bill established an advisory council to assist the director of the health division in administering the law. Fines for violations were increased to up to $100 a day….
“Still at issue are automatic sprinkler systems, which are required in new nursing homes but not in older facilities. The federal government held public hearings at the end of last year on a proposal to mandate sprinkler systems in all nursing homes….” (Weich, Susan. “Cause of Mo. Katie Jane Memorial Home fire still a mystery.” St. Louis Post Dispatch, MO, 2-17-2007.)
Wilson: “…two factors…make institutions different [from other occupancies], constant building use and constant patient care….
“None of the fire tragedies of this century, e.g., the Ohio State Penitentiary fire, the Cocoanut Grove Night Club fire, the Effingham Hospital fire, the Warrenton Nursing Home fire, and the Chicago school fire[1] would have been tragedies if these buildings had complied with the life safety recommendations of the Building Exits Code [of the NFPA].
“The major institutional killer is…fire in the nursing home.
“The classic nursing home fire occurred in February 1957 in Warrenton, Missouri, at the Katie Jane Nursing Home. In 1955 a man acquired some former college buildings nad converted them to nursing home use. The main building, the annex, and the connecting passage-way were of masonry, wood-joisted construction and comprised one fire area due to the absence of doors in the passage-way and building corridors. There were three stairways from the second floor, all open and all discharging into the open first floor.
“Bed patients were housed on the second floor so that ambulatory patients would not have to use the stairs. As far as can be determined not one bed patient survived. There were four attendants and five other employees with various household duties who served as nurses’ aides when needed. There were possibly 50 Sunday visitors throughout the building, 59 able-bodies persons, in all, ready to help the 149 occupants in case of fire.
“Shortly before 2:30 p.m. a 92-year-old patient thought he smelled smoke in the first story of the annex. Although no one heeded his warning, he dressed and went outside. The first story attendant in the annex was upstairs assisting the second story attendant with a patient. At approximately 2:30 p.m., a visitor in the passageway looked into the first story of the annex and saw fire coming from the wood lath and plaster ceiling adjacent to a linen closet beneath the stairway to the second story.
“During the estimated five minutes it took for the visitor to find an employee, it took for the visitor to find an employee, for the employee to verify the presence of the fire and to telephone the alarm from the office of the main building, smoke, hot fire gases, and flames had spread so rapidly that the employee, after completing the call, could not reenter the annex. Eight first floor patients and three from the second floor managed to escape with the help of visitors and attendants during the first five minutes. The other twenty-three patients in the annex were trapped and killed.
“As soon as shouts of ‘Fire’ were heard, visitors and attendants in the Main Building did what they could to get the elderly inmates out before smoke and hot fire gases pouring through the open passageway from the annex made the main building untenable. At the most, there was ten minutes’ time during which evacuation of the 115 persons in the main building would have been possible. Seventy-two persons died in this building. Only seventy-seven had been removed.
“Where was the evacuation system, the inspection, the staff training? There was not time because there was no built-in protection, no smoke divisions, no enclosed interior exits. Again, without sprinklers this combustible building was unsuitable as a nursing home.” (Wilson. “Institutional Fire Protection Is Different.” Quarterly…[NFPA] 55/1, July 1961, pp. 32-33.)
Contemporary Newspapers:
Feb 17: “Warrenton, Mo., Feb. 17. (AP) — Fire sped through a private nursing home for the aged and infirm here today in a matter of minutes, trapping almost half of the patients and leaving an estimated death toll of 71. Intense heat drove back firemen and rescue workers attempting to reach the bodies hours after the flash fire. The state highway patrol reported 71 of the 155 aged patients of the 2 1/2-story brick building missing and presumed dead. Forty-five of them were women….The flames spread so fast said Mrs. Knigge, wife of the coroner, that it was all over in 10 or 15 minutes. ‘I heard screams and- ran from my home to the building,’ she said. ‘By the time I got there 10 or 15 minutes later it was all over.’
“Firemen, townspeople and attendants risked their lives to carry many bedridden patients and the injured from the flaming building in this Missouri town of 1,600 about 60 miles west of St; Louis…. The bodies of the victims were badly charred. Most of the bodies were found in the basement where they had fallen as floors gave way. The fire broke out about 3:45 o’clock in the afternoon.
“Warren Stuart, an employee at a filling station across the street, said he first saw smoke coming out of the corner of the 60-year-old building. Only minutes after the fire started, Stuart said, he could hear cries and screams and repeated calls for help. ‘The more water they poured on it the faster it burned,’ Stuart said. ‘In only a few moments the flames and smoke beat back rescue efforts. Those who hadn’t gotten out by then just didn’t get out.’
“Mrs. O’Sullivan was slightly injured in her fight to save inmates. She helped 10 persons out and when she saw she could not re-enter the home she and others laid mattresses on the ground and told inmates to jump. Several jumped down 20 feet to safety.
“O’Sullivan started the nursing home, .which he called the Katie Jane. He said patients ranged in age from 50 to 99 years. ‘I’ve spent $30,000 trying to fix it up just to avoid something like this,’ O’Sullivan said.
“`It was burning throughout,’ [Fire Chief] Hannar said, ‘There was fire in the back. There was fire in the front. We honestly don’t know what could have spread it so fast. We don’t have a single clue.’
“Cook stoves in the kitchen used liquefied petroleum fuel stored in big pressure tanks 100 yards behind the building. Pipes carried the fuel from the tanks to the kitchen through a tunnel. Hannar said the gas was controlled by valves at the tanks. He said an examination after the ire showed the valves had been shut off…. O’Sullivan explained he had no heating stoves in the building and that it was heated by steam from a powerhouse a bock away.
“A the height of the fire, the roof caved in. The fire destroyed both a main building and an annex.
A muffled explosion after the fire staffed shot flames as high as 60 feet into the sky. Long smoke clouds could be seen as far as 30 miles away.” (AP. “Missouri Fire Toll at 71.” Kansas City Times. 2-18-1957.)
Sources
Associated Press. “Missouri Fire Toll at 71,” Kansas City Times, MO. 2-18-1957. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FreePdfViewer.aspx?img=38924206
Babcock, Chester I. “A Place for Old Folks to Live.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 51, No. 1, July 1957, pp. 35-49.
Barlay, Stephen. Fire: An International Report. Brattleboro, VT: Stephen Greene Press, 1973.
National Fire Protection Association. “Frontispiece.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 50, No. 4, April 1957.
National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996. Accessed 2010 at: http://www.nfpa.org/itemDetail.asp?categoryID=1352&itemID=30955&URL=Research%20&%20Reports/Fire%20statistics/Key%20dates%20in%20fire%20history&cookie%5Ftest=1
National Fire Protection Association (John Hall, Jr.). U.S. Unintentional Fire Death Rates by State. Quincy, MA: NFPA, 31 pages, December 2008.
National Fire Sprinkler Association, Inc. F.Y.I. – Fire Sprinkler Facts. Patterson, NY: NFSA, November 1999, 8 pages. Accessed at: http://www.firemarshals.org/data/File/docs/College%20Dorm/Administrators/F1%20-%20FIRE%20SPRINKLER%20FACTS.pdf
United States Congress. Senate. Nursing Home Care in the United States (Senate Report 94-00). Washington, DC: Special Committee on Aging , Subcommittee on Long-Term Care, Aug, 1975.
Weich, Susan. “Cause of Mo. Katie Jane Memorial Home fire still a mystery.” St. Louis Post Dispatch, MO, 2-17-2007. Accessed 7-8-2013 at: http://www.firerescue1.com/fire-news/278702-cause-of-mo-katie-jane-memorial-home-fire-still-a-mystery/
Wilson, Rexford. “Institutional Fire Protection Is Different.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 55, No. 1, July 1961, pp. 28-36.
[1] Ohio State Pen. fire was on 4-21-1930 in Columbus with 320-322 deaths; Effingham fire refers to St. Anthony Hospital fire, Effingham, IL, April 4-5, 1949, 74 deaths; Cocoanut Grove fire was on 11-28-1942 with 498 deaths; Chicago school fire presumably refers to Our Lady of Angels Elementary School fire of 12-1-1958 taking 95 lives.