1979 — Nov 11, Fire, Coats Boarding/Nursing House, Pioneer, OH — 14
— 14 Bell. “Fourteen Die in Ohio Boarding Home Fire.” NFPA Fire Journal, July 1980, p. 28.
— 14 Chronicle-Telegram, Elyria OH. “Boy Plays With Matches…14…Perish,” 11-12-1979.
— 14 NFPA. Coats Rooming House, Pioneer, Ohio, November 11, 1979, 14 Fatalities.
— 14 National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996.
— 14 U.S. Congress, House. Boarding Home Fires: New Jersey Hearing, March 9, 1981, p. 14.
Narrative Information
National Fire Protection Association: “On November 11, 1979, fourteen people died in a fire at the Coats Rooming House, Pioneer, Ohio. A three and one-half-year-old child playing with a cigarette lighter was responsible for a rapidly spreading fire which killed thirteen residents and one of the owners of the home. The rooming house provided room and board for eleven elderly private residents and eight mentally retarded outpatients. Two apartment units in the building had an additional five occupants. The home was operated by the owners, who also resided in the building. Because of the husband’s poor health, the wife continued the day-to-day operation of the boarding home with the help of one employee.
“The fire which occurred at 9:20 a.m. on a Sunday morning, started in a sofa in an apartment unit located on the first floor of the one and two-story structure. Fire and smoke spread rapidly, throughout the building, trapping many residents in their rooms. Combustible interior finish, heavy fuel loading, lack of compartmentation, a single means of egress from the second floor, and the apparent lack of response of some of the residents to the fire conditions contributed to the fourteen fatalities.” (NFPA. Coats Rooming House, Pioneer, Ohio, Nov 11, 1979…. Pp. 1-2.)
“The fire originated in a daybed on which two children had been sleeping in the rented apartment unit in the northwest corner of the building. On the morning of the fire, a 20-year old mother, her three children aged 3 years, 2 years and 3 months were in the apartment along with the 17-year-old baby-sitter who had slept over after watching the children the previous evening.
“At approximately 9:25 a.m., the baby-sitter sleeping in a bunk bed at the rear of the rental unit, awoke to find the day bed on fire. The fire was already extending up the sheer window curtains behind the couch. She picked up the 3-month old sleeping in a nearby crib, ran past the day bed to the entry foyer of the apartment where she woke the mother who was asleep on a couch. The 2- and 3-year-old children were standing by the sleeping mother. As the baby-sitter got the children out of the building, the mother ran through the kitchen of the rental unit to the kitchen of the boarding house where she found the owner. As she opened the door between the apartment and the kitchen, smoke poured through the doorway after her. The mother took a 10-pound carbon dioxide fire extinguisher from the kitchen and returned to the room where the couch was burning. She attempted to extinguish the fire, but the carbon dioxide extinguisher was ineffective. As heat and flame rolled back toward her, she retreated and left the building.
“The owner had been in the kitchen and immediately placed a call to her son-in-law, who was the town’s police chief. He broadcast the fire alarm over the fire department base station located in his home. Upon hearing the alarm, the ex-fire chief for the town, his son, and another neighbor ran from their homes across the street to the rooming house. Fire was issuing from the windows of the apartment located in the northwest corner of the building. They entered the corridor on the east side of the building. Smoke was already filling the rooms and corridors.
“Although thick smoke was present in their rooms, several residents were found sitting in chairs or sitting or lying on their beds. They were pulled to their feet, and either led or directed to the nearest door to the outside. Seven residents, including the invalid owner of the building, were led from the building before smoke conditions became untenable and rescuers were forced to abandon their efforts.
“Although it was apparent to the other rescuers that it was impossible to reenter the building to rescue any other residents, the owner reentered the building. Her body was later found at the bottom of the single stairway to the second floor. Her arms were around a resident whom she was attempting to rescue….
“The fatalities from the fire ranged in age from 36 to 87 years old. Ten of the eleven residents who resided on the second floor succumbed to the fire. One 58-year old resident who roomed on that floor was at church at the time of the fire.
“Of the fatalities on the second floor, three were found sitting or lying on their beds. One resident was found sitting in a chair. Three victims were located on the first floor. One victim was on her bed while a second was found in a bedside chair. The third was found in a location that would indicate possible movement toward the front door which was in the direction of the fire when the victim was overcome….” (NFPA. Coats Rooming House, Pioneer, Ohio, Nov 11, 1979…. Pp. 3-5.)
Newspaper
Nov 12: “Pioneer, Ohio (UPI) – Residents northwest of Toledo, responded to a fire that killed 14 women with open arms to the survivors and nothing but kind words for Gladys Coats. Mrs. Coats, 62, was the owner-operator of the boarding home, struck by fire Sunday morning. She died trying to save the life of one of the residents after she had already rescued three people, including her husband. A breathless Mrs. Coats told her son-in-law, Police Chief Dave Norris, over the phone, “Brian set fire to the couch, hurry.” Brian, who escaped the blaze, is a 4-year-old boy who lived in an apartment attached to the home.
“Within two minutes, retired Fire Chief Paul Oxender and his firefighting son, Paul, were on the front lawn of the brick house. The two-story house and the wooden apartments attached to it were in flames. It housed mostly retarded and elderly people.
“Another resident, Kenny Grant, looked out his front window and saw “the whole thing was in flames.” He ran over and the three men tramped through the flower beds to the house’s east door.
Together they dragged out a man with one leg and put him under a tree. They couldn’t get into the house again. “It was just filled with black smoke,” said Grant. The men could not find Mrs. Coats, who before them had dragged out two of her residents and her husband Eugene, who has a heart condition.
“They would find her body later. Mrs. Coats had gone back in for a third resident and apparently died of smoke inhalation. “She must have been stumbling around in that black smoke, feeling with her hands. She couldn’t have seen anything,” Grant said. “I knew her as a very fine person,”
said a neighbor “She was a real sweetheart,” said another.
“Mrs. Coats neighbors converged on North Central School, the village’s combined elementary and high school, just one house from Mrs. Coats. The school became a temporary morgue and a meeting place for residents trying to help. “People came as soon as they heard,” said one woman who had been ladling coffee for nine hours. “They brought dishes of food right off their dinner tables.”….
“In the gym, near the cafeteria, the coroner identified the 14 bodies taken from Mrs. Coats’ house.
“State officials came to the school too. They began talking to reporters about how Mrs. Coats’ house was just like a chimney. It was old, had no sprinkler system, it wasn’t safe enough to be a
nursing home. Then Judy Norris came. Mrs. Coats was her mother. “They had the best of help and the best of care,” she said holding back the tears. “I know. I worked there every day. I won’t let anybody downgrade her.”
“No one from Pioneer did. “She took in all kinds of people,” Grant said. “I bet half of them she never charged.” “She devoted her whole life to those people,” Chief Norris said of his mother-in-law. “She took in people in the middle of the night.” “And she saved two people,” Mrs. Norris said. “Plus she dragged my dad out”.” (Chronicle-Telegram, Elyria, OH. “Boy Plays With Matches…14 People Perish,” 11-12-1979.)
Sources
Bell, James R. “Fourteen Die in Ohio Boarding Home Fire.” Fire Journal, National Fire Protection Association, July 1980, pp. 28-33.
Chronicle-Telegram, Elyria, OH. “Boy Plays With Matches…14 People Perish,” 11-12-1979, pp. 1&4. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=30185590
National Fire Protection Association. Coats Rooming House, Pioneer, Ohio, November 11, 1979, 14 Fatalities. Boston, MA: NFPA.
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
United States Congress, House of Representatives. Boarding Home Fires: New Jersey (Hearing before the Select Committee on Aging, 97th Congress, 1st Session, Jan 21, 1981, Trenton, NJ).
Washington, DC: GPO, 1981.