–11 Best. “The Seminole County Jail Fire, Sanford, Florida.” Deadliest Prison Fires in…[US].

–11 National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. 1983, p. 173.

–11 National Fire Sprinkler Association. F.Y.I. 1999, 7.

–11 UPI. “10 Inmates, Guard Die…Seminole Jail Fire.” Naples Daily News, FL. 6-10-1975, 2A

Narrative Information

Best (NFPA Fire Analysis Specialist): “Burning Urethane Mattresses in this institutional occupancy created a rapid buildup of intense heat and toxic smoke. Prisoners could not escape from their locked cells, and ten of the prisoners died before rescuers could reach them. One prison correctional officer died while attempting to free the inmates. Fire fighters were frustrated in their attempts to rescue prisoners because the jail keys had been left on the floor of fire origin in the confusion of the first few minutes. Also, one passageway, which before the fire had been designated by the Fire Department as a possible emergency evacuation route, was blocked by approximately 100 unclaimed bicycles on the day of the fire. The bicycles were going to be sold at an auction the following week…. [1^st page]

“There was no sprinkler protection, no smoke or fire detection system, and no alarm system in the jail. There was an emergency lighting system and standpipe hose system. One hose station was located immediately outside the room of fire origin on the second floor, and another hose station was located on the first floor. The second floor portable fire extinguisher cabinets and hose cabinet were locked and required a key for access. A key to the cabinets, with a wooden handle for easy identification, was located at the second-floor jailer’s station. The main exit from the second floor was an enclosed stairway to the first floor, located near the center of the building. A small elevator served the second floor, and [end of p.7] another stairway on the east side of the elevator led to the roof. The stairs and corridor to the roof were blocked by cartons of mattresses, pillows, and other storage. The only other means of egress from the second floor was the connecting passageway to the courthouse building. Doors on both ends of the connector were normally locked. There were no exit signs on any of the exit doors….

“Several master keys were required to open all the various cell and corridor doors. Separate keys controlled the cell corridor, section, and control-station doors. Control stations located in the north and south wings could all be opened by the same key. Control stations in the east wing were opened by a different key. Main access doors to all cells were opened from the same control station as the sliding doors for the cell or cell block, lint had a completely separate lock system. There were two sets of keys. One set was kept at the second-floor correctional officers’ post and the other at the first-floor shift supervisor’s post. Both sets of keys were normally used daily in routine work. Both sets were on the second floor when the fire started.

Background

“Two stacks of mattresses were stored in the room of fire origin on both the north and south walls. They were 25-inch-by-72-inch-by-3-inch thick penal mattresses that consisted of a urethane foam slab interior covered with a nylon-bonded vinyl cover, The foam was treated with chemicals and was advertised to comply with the ASTM 1692-67T general usage rating test. The cover was treated with chemicals to meet specifications as a flame-retardant fabric. A prominent notice on the manufacturer’s brochure stated:

Notice

Under actual fire conditions, this product, as well as sheets, blankets, pillows, towels, etc., will under some circumstances produce toxic fumes and dense smoke. Extreme care must be exercised to minimize the risk of all fires, most especially in close, poorly ventilated cells. This product cannot he ignited with lit cigarettes, however, open flame from matches, lighters, or burning newspapers will ignite this product for as long as the outside flame source is in contact with this mattress or pillow.

“The storage of mattresses in the room of fire origin had been going on for many years. The number of mattresses stored was unknown, but the stacks were reported to be from five feet to seven feet high. The mattresses on the north wall were piled on a metal bed frame.

The Fire

“There were 65 prisoners in the jail on June 9, 1975, when the fire occurred. Sixty were behind locked doors, one trustee was working outside, and four trustees were working in the kitchen and laundry on the first floor. Eight correctional officers were on duty and two were stationed on the second floor.

“The noon meal was delivered to the second floor at 11:55 am and the two correctional officers served the trustees first, then the inmates in N section, and then the inmates in S section. The door to the outer room of the segregated cells was unlocked so the two prisoners in the cells could be fed… One of the two prisoners, a juvenile located in the north cell, threw his drink at the correctional officer. The officer asked him what was wrong and he stated that he “wanted out” because his trial had been postponed a second time. The prisoner said he didn’t want anything to eat and was going to set the place on fire if he didn’t get out. The correctional officer locked the door and left to feed the prisoners in the other sections.

“The second correctional officer went downstairs and reported the problem with the inmate to the shift supervisor. The shift supervisor advised him to watch the prisoner and said that if the prisoner continued to cause trouble, he would be put in leg irons and handcuffs and confined to the holding cell on the first floor.

“The prisoner in the south segregated cell was just starting to eat his lunch when he noticed that the prisoner in the neighboring cell, who had threatened to start a fire, was throwing crumpled-up newspapers out the food opening of his cell door. The newspapers made a pile about one foot high and covered a large area of the floor. Soon after noticing that, the prisoner in the south cell saw fire and smoke and he started to holler for help. When the fire grew more intense he covered his head with a wet towel, lay down on the floor, and pulled his mattress on top of him.

“One of the correctional officers noticed smoke coming from the segregated cell area a few minutes later. He called to the other officer and they ran to investigate. One of them unlocked the outer door to the security cell area. When he looked inside and saw that the [end of p.8] mattresses were on fire, he shut the door again and went to get the standpipe hose outside the room of fire origin. The lock on the door to the hose cabinet had been broken at one time and repaired. The two correctional officers didn’t realize that the lock had been repaired and thought they needed a screwdriver to open the door. The second officer went after a screwdriver. The first officer called downstairs on the intercom and reported to the shift supervisor that there was a large fire on the second floor. He stayed as long as he could, then went downstairs to see if help was coming. The smoke was so heavy by this time that he had to crawl to the stairway. He got the standpipe hose from the first floor and went back up the stairs with a third officer, both men using wet towels to cover their faces. Just before the first correctional officer reported the fire, a trustee ran downstairs and reported the fire. The Sanford Fire Department was immediately notified by telephone.

“The two correctional officers crawled and felt their way along the second-floor corridor and opened the door to section N-I, but only three prisoners came out. The prisoners went down the stairs to the first floor, where other law enforcement officers took custody of them. The officers crawled back downstairs to get air, then repeated their trip to the second floor and opened the S-1 section. No prisoners came out. By this time the heat was so great that the officers retreated to the first floor again, leaving the keys in the door to S-1. One was nearly overcome by the smoke and heat, and was taken outside for oxygen….

“Evacuation of some prisoners had already taken place when the Fire Department arrived. There were no keys to the cell doors available for fire fighters to continue the evacuation of prisoners. Heavy smoke was billowing from the west side of the jail….

“The fire fighters were able to talk to the prisoners in the cells along the west wall and instructed them to lie on the floor and cover themselves with mattresses and blankets. The fire fighters then kept the prisoners wet with their hose lines until they could be evacuated.

“After receiving oxygen for about four minutes, the first correctional officer, who left the keys in the door, went back inside. Fire fighters and other correctional officers were trying to locate the keys. It took the correctional officer a couple of minutes to remember what had happened to the keys. When he remembered, he went back upstairs wearing breathing apparatus and recovered the keys. He then went back to N-2 with the fire fighters, who led all prisoners out of the building. They tried to get to S-2 and S-3 sections, but the heat from the classroom was so great that they couldn’t get by the classroom door.

“Other correctional officers donned breathing apparatus and went upstairs to assist. The smoke was heavy, about waist high. They asked for the standpipe hose cabinet key, but by that time the heat was too great for the correctional officers to get to the hose station. They then asked for keys to the cell areas and tried to enter N-1 and S-1. They finally got three prisoners out. They obtained the key to J-l, found three bodies by the door and dragged them downstairs. After searching J-l, they went to S-1 and found at least eight prisoners unconscious on the floor, and dragged them out.

“After searching the entire area, they still could not find the second correctional officer who had gone for the screwdriver. They entered the dispensary room by crawling along the floor and found the body of the officer by the air-conditioning unit. The second set of keys were found with the dead correctional officer.

“Correctional officers and fire fighters went to J [end of p. 9] section where the trustees were jailed, and dragged out the unconscious prisoners. Then F section was opened and all the juvenile prisoners and the one female prisoner left; one of the prisoners had to be carried out. Correctional officers and fire fighters again tried to get to S-3 section, and by this time the hose streams from outside the building had cooled the classroom area. Meanwhile, fire fighters had also entered this area with l½-inch hose lines. They were able to feel their way along the walls and open S-2 and S-3. All prisoners were evacuated from those cells.

“When all sections had been evacuated, officers opened the door to the corridor between the segregated cells and the outside wall. They discovered the inmate in the south segregated cell at that time- still alive. The correctional officers and fire fighters went back around to the cell entrance. The fire fighters cooled the walls and they were able to evacuate the prisoner. They also opened the north cell and recovered the body of the prisoner who is alleged to have been responsible for the fire and who was one of the fatalities.

“The fire fighters and the correctional officers again made a thorough cell-to-cell cheek of the entire second floor for any remaining inmates. Fire fighters used smoke ejectors and hose lines to clear the smoke from the jail, and the area was reasonably tenable 35 to 40 minutes after the Fire Department arrived. Evacuation of the prisoners took nearly an hour to complete.

Discussion

“….The fire was confined to the mattresses stored in the outer room of the segregated cell area; however, the wall tiles in the classroom on the south side of the room of origin were ignited by radiant heat. The tiles burned to within three to four feet of the floor, and the books and other combustible materials in the room were consumed….

“Numerous recommendations had been submitted to the County Jail Administration by the Seminole County Department of Fire Protection prior to the fire. The recommendations included the following:

Provide breathing apparatus on both floors.
Label doors as to use and provide illuminated exit signs.
Remove all storage from the stairway to the roof.
Provide a manual fire alarm system with connection to the Fire Department.
Provide a smoke detection system.
Provide additional exits and install access panels for the purpose of ventilation and rescue of trapped occupants.
All security personnel should carry keys to all standpipe and fire extinguisher cabinets.
Bedding should be noncombustible material.
Provide a reliable holding area for inmates while an emergency in the occupancy exists.

“The breathing apparatus had been provided, with two units on each floor. A decision to install the recommended smoke detection system was made in March 1975, and the company arrived to start the installation on the day of the fire. Other recommendations had not been complied with.

Analysis

“Two breathing apparatus units and portable fire extinguishers on the second floor were not used. The standpipe hose on the second floor, less than two feet from the door of the room of fire origin, was not used because the lock was believed to be broken. There was reportedly no delay in notifying the Fire Department, however, keys were not available for Fire Department use. The sally port, which had been surveyed by the Fire Department as a possible route for removing prisoners from the jail in an emergency, was blocked by approximately 100 unclaimed bicycles that had been scheduled to be auctioned off during the week following the fire. An alternate route for evacuation of the prisoners the second-floor connecting passage to the jail was not used.

This fire points again to the need for penal institutions to be designed, constructed, maintained, and [end of p.10] operated so as to minimize the possibility of a fire requiring the evacuation of occupants. Because the safety of occupants of institutional buildings cannot be assured adequately by dependence on evacuation of the building, their protection from fire must be provided by appropriate arrangement of facilities, adequate staffing, and careful development of operating and maintenance procedures composed of the following:

Proper design, construction, and compartmentation;

Provisions for detection, alarm, and extinguishment; and

Fire prevention and the planning, training, and drilling in programs for the isolation of fire and transfer of occupants to areas of refuge or for the evacuation of the building. (p. 17)

(Best, Richard. “The Seminole County Jail Fire, Sanford, Florida.” Fire Journal, Jan 1976, p. 7.)

June 10: “Sanford, Fla. (UPI) – Clean-up crews worked through the night to restore order to the blackened remains of the Seminole County Jail following a mattress fire Monday that escalated into a holocaust and claimed 11 lives. State and county fire marshals were expected to release a statement later today detailing their investigation of the blaze which swept through a portion of the second-floor jail shortly after noon Monday, engulfing inmates and jailers in flames and smoke.

“Ten convicts, including a juvenile, were killed in the fire as well as a jail guard. At least 39 inmates were taken to three area hospitals suffering from smoke inhalation but by 9 p.m. only 31 remained hospitalized. All were reported in good or fair condition. Inmates who were treated and released and those who escaped injury were transferred to the Orange County Jail.

“The fire, which began in a tiny hospital cell when an unidentified inmate set his mattress ablaze, spread quickly to an adjoining room where the rest of the jail’s mattresses were stored. The burning mattresses produced a thick, acrid smoke that hindered rescue efforts, according to Fire Chief John Harriett. “If you didn’t have respiratory protection, you couldn’t get up there,” Harriett said.

“It took firemen less than five minutes to reach the l5-year-old yellow masonry building in the heart of downtown Sanford. It took nearly an hour and 15 minutes to evacuate all 68 inmates and put out the blaze.

“John Fulenweider, chief investigator for the Seminole-Brevard State Attorney’s office, emerged from the adjoining courthouse building minutes after the blaze erupted and witnessed the rescue efforts. “It looked like a bake oven up there,” said Fulenweider. “I could hear the inmates screaming and yelling. They were screaming ‘Help, get us out. Get us out.’ I could hear them coughing. It was really pathetic.” Firefighters had to batter a hole through a side wall of the two-story building to battle the blaze.

“Jailers Robert O. Moore and Lt. Max Stewart were credited with assisting in the evacuation of prisoners as was inmate Elvis Webster, who reportedly “went back in (after being taken out) with a gas mask and dragged out three other men.” Moore, a 40-year-old father of four, later died of smoke inhalation.

“Others who died in the blaze, all inmates and all Floridians, were: Richard Lamar Skates, 23, Orlando; Ray McCall, 16, Orlando; Billy Gene McPeak, 21, Apopka; Elton Van Buren Hart, 44, Sanford; Ernest Campbell Jr., 28, Sanford; Fred Gaines, 54, Oviedo; Willie Levi Craig, 64, Sanford; Jesse Lee Allen, 24, Sanford; Peter John Muench, 24, Maitland, and William Eugene Smith, 30, Dade City.

“The flames were confined to the two-cell hospital unit and adjoining drunk tanks, which had been converted into a student classroom. But jail officials estimated “83 to 90 per cent of the jail” sustained smoke damage. Chief Deputy Duane Harrell said two inmates were confined in the small hospital unit.” (UPI, Sanford. “10 Inmates, Guard Die in Seminole Jail Fire.” Naples Daily News, FL. 6-10-1975, 2A.)

Sources

Best, Richard. “The Seminole County Jail Fire, Sanford, Florida.” Fire Journal, Jan 1976, 7 pages. Accessed 5-26-2015 at NFPA, Deadliest Prison Fires in the United States, at: http://www.nfpa.org/research/reports-and-statistics/fires-by-property-type/prisons-and-jails/deadliest-prison-fires-in-the-united-states

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

United Press International, Sanford. “10 Inmates, Guard Die in Seminole Jail Fire.” Naples Daily News, FL. 6-10-1975, 2A. Accessed 5-26-2015 at: http://newspaperarchive.com/us/florida/naples/naples-daily-news/1975/06-10/page-4?tag=seminole+county+jail&rtserp=tags/seminole-county-jail?psi=28&pci=7&ndt=ex&pd=10&pm=6&py=1975

1975 — June 9, Mattress set on Fire, spreads, Seminole County Jail, Sanford, FL — 11