1970 — Jan 9, Fire (cigarette?), Harmer House Convalescent Home, Marietta, OH –31-32
— 32 Corbett/Brannigan. Brannigan’s Building Construction for the Fire Service (5th ed.). p.117.
— 32 National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. 1983, p. 137.
— 32 Reznikoff. Specifications for Commercial Interiors. 1989, 26.
— 32 Sears. “Nursing Home Fire Marietta, Ohio.” NFPA Fire Journal, V64/N2, March 1970, 7.
–21 night of the fire –11 next few days
— 32 U.S. Senate. Nursing Home Care in the United States. August 1975, p. 460.
— 31 NFPA. Deadliest Fires in Facilities for Older Adults since 1950. March 2003.
— 31 National Fire Sprinkler Association. F.Y.I. 1999, 6.
— 31 Sears. “Nursing Home Fire Follow-Up.” NFPA Fire Journal, V65/N2, March 1971, p.37.*
— 28 National Fire Protection Assoc. Spreadsheet on Large Loss of Life Fires (as of Feb 2003).[1]
*A footnote indicates that while the original Sears article in 1969 noted “that 32 patients had been killed. It is now believed that one of them died of natural causes.” [Blanchard note: Even if one patient died of natural causes, such as a heart attack, we ask if it is possible that this was related to the fire and physical and mental stress associated with being removed from a burning building. Thus, even if one of the deaths might have been due to natural causes, it would none-the-less appear to be quite possibly a fire-related death.]
Narrative Information
Corbett and Brannigan: “….Carpeting …spread the fire in the Harmer House Nursing Home in Marietta, Ohio, where 32 individuals died in 1970. Combustible interior finish has been a factor in other fires leading to fatalities in structures where disabled or elderly people have resided.” (Corbett, Glenn P. and Francis L. Brannigan. Brannigan’s Building Construction for the Fire Service (5th ed.). 2015, p. 117.)
Sears/NFPA: “On the night of January 9, 1970, there were 46 elderly patients in the Home, with four regular employees and two special nurses. A licensed practical nurse with three nurses’ aides working for her was in charge of the shift. At 9:57 pm she was at the nurses’ station when the fire alarm sounded. She noted that the fire was in the south section of the building and sounded the internal evacuation alarm. The other three employees went to the south section, where they saw smoke coming from Room 104. One of the employees took a portable extinguisher and was going to fight the fire but set the extinguisher down to assist another employee in removing the one occupant from Room 104. When the two employees entered the room they observed the fire burning on the floor in the northwest corner. After they had rescued the patient from the room one of them took him outside while the other returned to fight the fire. However, the door to the room had been left open and dense smoke in the hallway prevented her from reaching the fire.
“The employees then tried to remove other patients. Unable to call the Fire Department because of the dense smoke that quickly developed in the area of the nurses’ station, the head nurse ran to a nearby house to call the Fire Department. One of the special nurses was able to use the phone at the nurses’ station and dialed the operator for assistance.
“Fire companies were dispatched from two stations. When the fire fighters arrived, dense smoke was coming from the windows and doors, some of the patients were being led or carried out of the building, and other patients were being rescued through windows by employees and neighbors. As the fire fighters started rescue work, bystanders told them of fire in a window on the east side. One engine company went to the east side and, after some difficulty, made it up the snow- covered driveway to the southeast corner of the building. Once there, they saw flames coming from the window of Room 104 and attacked the fire with a 134,-inch hose line equipped with a fog nozzle. In a few minutes they were able to knock down the fire in Room 104 and the adjacent hallway.
“In other sections of the building fire fighters assisted by neighbors were rescuing patients. The dense smoke and the strapping that had been used to keep some patients in bed hampered their efforts. In some rooms the smoke was so thick the fire fighters had to feel their way around to locate the patients.
“A call went out for all off-duty fire fighters and all available outside help. While they were waiting for ambulances, patients were taken to nearby homes and placed in cars to get them out of the freezing temperature. When the ambulances and rescue vehicles arrived the patients were transported to the two hospitals in the area. After the rescue work had been completed the fire fighters were able to extinguish what little fire was left in the building.
“The fire originated in a plastic wastebasket in the northwest corner of Room 104. It is believed that a carelessly discarded cigarette ignited combustibles in the wastebasket. The fire burned for a short time before actuating the fire alarm. It is reported that the occupant of Room 104 observed the fire but, thinking it would burn itself out in the wastebasket, did not notify anyone. Smoke and heat from the fire rapidly built up and traveled into the hallway. The fire completely destroyed the interior of Room 104. The paint on the hallway walls blistered, and the nylon carpeting melted as far as Room 114. The nurses’ station received heavy fire damage…. Rooms with closed doors received little smoke damage except to the walls near the sides and tops of the doors. The corridor sides of those doors were charred.
“The night of the fire 21 of the 46 patients were pronounced dead. Smoke inhalation was listed as the cause of most of the deaths. Eleven others died later. Many of the 21 who perished during the fire were sleeping in rooms with the doors open. Two patients sleeping just two rooms away from the room of origin ( in Room 102) survived; the door to their room was closed….
“NFPA No. 101, the Life Safety Code, does not permit more than 150 feet of corridor without smokestop partitions or horizontal exits. There were no smokestop partitions in the corridors of the building. Had such partitions been installed between the center section and each adjoining section, and had the partition doors been kept closed, the smoke, heat, and fire probably would have been confined to the south wing. Had the building had an automatic sprinkler system, the fire in all likelihood would have been extinguished before spreading from the room of origin. A smoke detection system in combination with the heat detection system might have given the employees earlier warning. A direct connection from the detection system to the Fire Department would have saved precious minutes in alerting the Fire Department. As we have noted, smoke was the big factor in the large loss of life. Had the smoke been controlled, many of the victims could have been saved. Had the building been equipped with an automatic sprinkler system, all the victims could have been saved….” [pp. 6-8] (Sears, Albert B. Jr. “Nursing Home Fire Marietta, Ohio.” Fire Journal, Vol. 64, No. 2, March 1970, pp. 5-9.)
U.S. Senate: “The Harmer House Convalescent Home was an unlikely site for a tragic nursing home fire. This relatively brand new (built in 1966), noncombustible structure boasted the most advanced technology, design, and building materials. The latter included solid-core doors, brick veneer and gypsum-board walls, roof of plywood on steel stresses; concrete floor covered with noncombustible tile and/or nylon carpet with sponge-rubber backing. This home also had rate-of-rise and fixed temperature heat detectors connected to an internal alarm system with manual pull stops.
“There were no sprinklers or smoke detectors, and the alarm system was not tied in to the fire department. Thirty-two of the 46 residents died of smoke inhalation in spite of these precautions, even though there were four regular employees and two private duty nurses in the home when the fire broke out at 9:57 p.m. The probable cause of the fire was a cigarette thrown into a trash-filled plastic wastebasket, which, in turn, ignited time sponge-rubber carpet backing, causing considerable smoke throughout the building. The fire department’s relatively late arrival (at 10:15) was due in part to the fact that the employees tried to fight the fire and evacuate residents before calling for assistance.” (Senate. Nursing Home Care in the United States. Aug 1975, 460.)
Sources
Corbett, Glenn P. and Francis L. Brannigan. Brannigan’s Building Construction for the Fire Service (5th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2015. Accessed 5-26-2015 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=DgdVAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=true
National Fire Protection Association. Spreadsheet on Large Loss of Life Fires (as of Feb 2003). (Email attachment to B. W. Blanchard from Jacob Ratliff, NFPA Archivist/Taxonomy Librarian, 7-8-2013.)
National Fire Protection Association. Deadliest Fires in Facilities for Older Adults Since 1950. Accessed 1-22-2009 at: http://www.nfpa.org/itemDetail.asp?categoryID=795&itemID=20732&URL=Research%20&%20Reports/Fact%20sheets/Nursing%20homes/Deadliest%20fires%20in%20facilities%20for%20older%20adults
National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. Quincy, MA: NFPA, 1983.
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
Reznikoff, S. C. Specifications for Commercial Interiors. Watson-Guptill, 1989, 319. Partially digitized by Google. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=hvyQyfKo0CoC
Sears, Albert B. Jr. “Nursing Home Fire Marietta, Ohio.” Fire Journal, Vol. 64, No. 2, March 1970, pp. 5-9.
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.
[1] We do not know why the Spreadsheet indicates 28 deaths rather than 31 or 32 – suspect an error.