1961 — Jan 6, Thomas Hotel fire, (boarding house type hotel), San Francisco, CA            —     20

— 20  NFPA. “Fatal San Francisco Hotel Fire.” NFPA Quarterly, 54/3, Jan 1961, frontispiece.

— 20  National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History.  1996.

— 20  NFPA. “Large Loss of Life Fires of 1961,” Quarterly, Vol. 55, N3, Jan 1962, pp. 327-328.

— 20  National Fire Sprinkler Association. F.Y.I.  1999, 6.

— 20  Oakland Tribune, CA. “A Death Trap for 20. Open Stairway ‘Chimney’…” 1-7-1961, p. 1.

— 20  Ward, Neale. “Hotel Fires: Landmarks in Flames…,” Firehouse, March 1978, p. 41.

— 19  Newspaperarchive.com. “Blaze at Thomas Hotel Kills 19.”

Narrative Information

NFPA, Jan 1961: “Twenty of the 135 occupants of the Thomas Hotel in San Francisco lost their lives and another 35 were injured during an early morning fire on January 6, 1961. Originating in the first-floor room of an intoxicated man who fell asleep while smoking, the fire extended to upper stories of the 5-story building by means of an open stairway. There was a 10- to 15-minute delay in the fire department notification as the hotel clerk and a guest first tried to put out the bed fire with an extinguisher. Flames were issuing from windows on all floors when apparatus arrived.

 

“The local Housing Code required enclosure of stairways in hotels but compliance by the 48-year-old Thomas Hotel could not be obtained since the building had been built prior to 1947, when the Code was adopted….” (NFPA. “Fatal San Francisco Hotel Fire.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 54, No. 3, Jan 1961, frontispiece.)

 

NFPA, Jan 1962: “Thomas Hotel, San Francisco, Calif., Jan. 6, 5:10 A.M. 20 Killed: All Adults.

 

“Twenty of the 135 guests of the Thomas Hotel lost their lives and another 30 were injured during a fire that destroyed 80 percent of the old 5-story building. Occupants for the most part were elderly or infirm pensioners occupying permanent lodgings in the low-rate hotel.

 

“The early morning fire originated in a first-floor guest room, swept up an adjacent open stairway and trapped many occupants in their rooms. Although careless smoking by an intoxicated permanent guest was the cause of the fire, basic reasons for this tragedy would appear to be the absence of sprinkler protection and the presence of open stairways. The San Francisco Housing Code requires stairway enclosures in hotels, but at least up to the time of this fire it had not been possible to enforce this requirement on owners of hotels erected prior to 1947, when the Code was adopted. The Thomas Hotel was erected in 1913.

 

“The Thomas Hotel occupied a 5-story brick, wood-joisted building fronting on Mission Street and extending 150 feet back to Minna Street…The building was 80 feet wide. On one side there was a 7-story building and on the other a 1-story building. The Mission Street half of the first story was occupied by the hotel lobby and a store. The rear half of the first story contained guest rooms. The second story contained a mezzanine above the lobby and store, and guest rooms in the rear. The third through fifth floors were occupied entirely by guest accommodations…In all, there were 150 guest rooms.

 

 

“….Two 30-inch-wide open stairways, one near the front and the other at the rear, constituted the only interior vertical exits except for an elevator at the lobby and a 36-inch-wide op stairway between the first and second stories near the center of the building.

 

“The fire escapes…at front and rear terminated at the second-floor level from where collapsible ladders cold be dropped to the ground….

 

“Fire protection for the building consisted of soda-acid extinguishers, an inside stand-pipe and hose system that was not maintained in good condition, and a fire department standpipe from the street to the roof on the Minna Street end… Had the building been required to comply with all provisions of the local building code, there would have been a manual fire alarm system to alert guests, but due to the fact that the building code had not been applied to buildings erected prior to its enactment, the building had no local fire alarm system….

 

“During the night of January 5-6, a drinking party had been held in a first-floor rear room. At approximately 5:00 A.M., the intoxicated 62-year-old occupant of this room awakened to find his bed on fire. He staggered into the hall where he was found by the occupant of an adjoining room. On seeing the fire, the latter yelled to the hotel clerk, at the desk in the lobby that thre was a fire, then took a soda-acid extinguisher from the wall, and after getting instructions from the clerk on how to operate it, directed the stream at the bed fire. The attack appeared to be successful but had to be interrupted while the clerk and guest forcibly removed the intoxicated man to a safe location down the hall. On their return, the fire was burning vigorously throughout the room and was spreading into the hall. As the clerk ran to the desk to telephone the alarm, fire spread by means of hallways and the open rear stairways to upper floors. Smoke pushing into guest rooms around loose fitting doors was followed by hot fire gases and fire when transoms broke.

 

“The telephoned alarm was received at fire department headquarters at 5:10 A.M. 22 engines, 9 ladder trucks, 6 hose tenders, 2 salvage units, 2 rescue units and 1 water tower were at the scene or on the way. Approximately 250 officers and men responded.

 

“All efforts of first-in companies were to save lives. Using the aerial ladder and a life net, crews rescued several people leaning from windows overlooking Minna Street. Simultaneously, firemen and police fought their way up through the building from the Mission Street entrance to get people out of the as yet uninvolved front two-thirds of the building. Many lives were saved by these rescue crews as they sought out trapped occupants and led or carried them through smoke-filled narrow, dark halls and stairs. This escape route soon became congested by hose lines dragged up into the building by fire fighting crews struggling to check the lateral spread of fire toward Mission Street long enough for the trapped to get out.

 

“In the rear half of the building, those guests who did not learn of the fire quickly were trapped in their rooms, and…several never got out of their rooms before being asphyxiated. Others were overcome in the hallways. Many jumped or fell into lightwells. Of these, three were killed, although many of those who jumped into lightwells survived because they landed on mattresses thrown into the narrow shafts at the direction of fire fighters. One of those rescued subsequently died.…” (NFPA. “Large Loss of Life Fires of 1961,” Quarterly, 55/3, Jan 1962, pp. 327-328.)

 

Timelines of History: “1961 Jan 6, in San Francisco a fire swept through the buck-a-night Thomas Hotel at 971 Mission St. killing 19 [20] people and injuring 38.” (Timelines of History. Timeline San Francisco 1960-1969.)

 

Newspapers

 

Newspaperarchive.com. “Friday, January 06, 1961 – The four-story building of the Thomas Hotel in San Francisco went up in flames today killing 19. “In this blackened place of death the happy rising trills of songbirds sounded insane. This was the lobby of the Thomas Hotel at 9 a.m. today, a four-story building which only hours before had echoed with the screams of the dying, the hoarse shouts of firemen trying to save them,” reported the Oakland Tribune on January 6, 1961.”  (Newspaperarchive.com.  “Blaze at Thomas Hotel Kills 19.”)

 

Jan 6: “Fire stalled by a cigarette turned a San Francisco hotel into a four-story inferno today, killing 19 persons and injuring 37. The building was occupied mostly by elderly pensioners and their terrified screams were heard blocks away. The death toll rose steadily as firemen labored through the destruction. It may go higher.

 

“Flames raced with killing speed from the second floor and boxed the brick structure in fire and panic. Five alarms, and a rare emergency alert placing every fireman in San Francisco on standby, brought 200 fire fighters to the furiously-burning Thomas Hotel at 971 Mission St. Every ambulance in the city, plus private ambulances and Red Cross vehicles, sped, sirens screaming to the disaster.

 

“Bodies were lined up along the sidewalk, and some of the injured and the uninjured, many in underwear, just stared at the inferno in apparent disbelief. Three of the dead were found near the front door. They could have stepped out.

 

“Firemen risked their lives to lead panicked residents from the holocaust. Five persons leaped from the top floor into nets. A legless man was dragged from the flames by a fireman who carried him through rolling smoke down a ladder. Two others in wheelchairs were boosted out of windows and carried to safety. Another man tried to descend from the fourth floor using a rope made of knotted bedsheets. It broke and he plunged to the street, breaking his back and legs. He screamed, “My dog didn’t get out.”

 

“All but 14 of the 150 rooms were occupied. Fire Chief William Murray said there were 135 persons in the 50-year-old hotel when it went up like a Roman candle in the 36-degree cold. A pillar of flames shot up from the roof 150 feet in the air. It was seen from as far as San Mateo County and drew a crowd of horrified onlookers.

 

“Some of the victims, terrified by advancing walls of fire, leaped down upper story light-wells, crashing to the floors below. They lay screaming in the ruins until they were carried out.

 

“It was the second tragic fire in 24 hours in the Bay Area. A fire in Richmond yesterday, about the same time of day, killed a woman and four children. This morning’s blaze burned for two hours, into the chill dawn.

 

“Chief Murray, whose oxygen-masked firemen worked magnificently against awesome odds, sadly repeated a tragic observation: ‘We could have saved more, we could have saved more, if we were called sooner.’ He said the blaze, the worst in San Francisco in 16 years, started from a cigarette in the second floor room of a man identified as Raymond Gorman. According to Murray, Gorman fell asleep while smoking in bed. He awoke in the flames and yelled ‘Fire.’ The occupant of an adjoining room, Edward Saylor, raced into Gorman’s room and extinguished the flames – or so he thought. He left to get night clerk Clarence Broderick, 53. They went back to Gorman’s room together. ‘We thought it was out,’ Broderick said. ‘Then a few burning embers fell off the bed to the floor and the fire flared up crazily.’ This time, they couldn’t get it out, Murray said. They fled. Gorman was among the injured. Police are holding him for investigation.

“Flames climbed up stairwells and light-wells to the upper floors with a roar. Most of the dead were trapped near the rear of the building, in hallways and in their rooms. Some were still in bed, killed before they could be roused….

 

“One man lost his life trying to save his clothes. Firemen found him on the floor. His opened suitcase was on the bed. His closet was empty of all his clothes. He had tried to pack before fleeing. He didn’t make it….

 

“Mrs. Delia Allen, one of eight women occupants of the hotel, was also one of those who leaped four floors into a net held by firemen. “I took lessons on jumping into a net during the war,” she said afterward. “When the firemen held the net for me. I knew just what to do.”

 

“Hotel manager Charles Casad. 39, said he had attempted to evict Gorman several weeks ago by doubling his rent from $7 to $14 because he drank. Casad said Gorman promised he was through with liquor and was allowed to stay. (Oakland Tribune, CA (Al Martinez and Buck Wilson). “19 Die in S.F. Hotel Holocaust, More Bodies Hunted; 37 Hurt.” 1-6-1961, pp. 1 and 6.)

 

Jan 6: “’I had plenty to drink. I was feeling no pain.” The man talking was Ray Gorman, 62. Police say his cigarette which touched off a mattress started the fire at the Thomas Hotel. Gorman, a graying man with a fuzzing beard, denies it. “It just shot up quick” in a corner of his room, he says. “It just busted out in big flames. I seen the blaze over in a corner. It spread fast. “It’s a wonder I got out.” Gorman , interviewed at Mission Emergency Hospital where he was treated for smoke inhalation, readily admitted he had been drinking, but added in vindication: “But I wasn’t paralyzed (drunk).” Had he been drinking wine? “No,” he chuckled. “I wasn’t that short. I had enough money to buy whisky and beer.”

 

“Told of the death toll, Gorman paled. “Nineteen dead? That’s terrible. I know everyone in that hotel. They’re all my friends. I’ve lived nine months in the same room. Nineteen dead…That’s awful. “I’m sorry all those people burned up.”

 

“Gorman said he didn’t even remember the night clerk being in his room. He said he didn’t know the occupant of the next room. The fire, he insisted, started in a corner. “It spread fast. I had a terrible time getting into the hallway. How I got out alive, I’ll never know. Are you sure there were 19 killed? There was that many dead? “My God . . .”” (Oakland Tribune, CA. “`My God!’ Plenty to Drink, Then – It Started.” 1-6-1961, p. 6.)

 

Jan 7: “An open stairwell that sucked flame, smoke and heat to the upper floors with terrifying speed was blamed today for the magnitude of San Francisco’s disastrous Thomas Hotel fire yesterday. The inferno — whose toll has risen to 20 and may still go higher — started at the rear stairway on the second floor in the room of 62-year-old Raymond Gorman. A cigarette in Gorman’s bedding probably touched it off. Flames swiftly turned the brick structure at 971 Mission St. into a four-story torch. Most of the dead were on the two upper floors in the rear of the building.

 

“”It’s what we’ve been afraid of for years: what we’ve dreaded.” said Chief Albert Hayes of the fire department’s division of prevention and investigation. “Now it has happened.” He was talking about the open stairway. It acted as a chimney, because it could not be closed off. Buildings constructed today must have doors at each landing. “But the laws are not retroactive,” Hayes said. This type of helpless appraisal of disaster, combined with sorrow for the dead and praise for the heroes, aptly told the story of the blazing pyre on Mission St.

 

“The 50-year-old Thomas Hotel was a haven for pensioners and the down-and-out. Some of them were invalids, many of them were feeble, most of them were elderly. ‘They screamed and screamed and screamed,’ said a fear-numbed witness.

 

“Five leaped into fire nets and were saved. Others jumped down light-wells and perished….

 

“Twenty persons died. The last, this morning, was Thor Mydland, who succumbed to multiple fractures. He was one of those who jumped without a net.

 

“Twelve of the dead — 11 men and one woman — have been identified. The other bodies lie in the city — morgue as “John Does” — all men. They may never be identified because fingerprints have been burned off and the hotel register is gone.

 

“There are 37 injured in three hospitals, taken there by the greatest armada of ambulances mustered in San Francisco in 16 years – since the last major hotel fire. Many of them, badly burned and suffering from the effects of heat and smoke, will undoubtedly die.

 

“The man booked for starting the fire — gray-haired, bearded Gorman — says “I didn’t do nothing.” He is being held for investigation of manslaughter. Gorman also doesn’t remember anything. Robert Saylor remembers. He occupied the room next to Gorman’s on the second floor. He remembers hearing footsteps in the hall around 5 a.m. He dressed and stepped out to see what it was. “Gorman’s room was in flames.” Saylor quoted Gorman as shouting “Don’t go in there! Don’t go in my room!”

 

“Saylor plunged in anyhow, armed with a fire extinguisher he had taken from the wall. He said he found Gorman’s bedding in flames. Saylor tried to douse the flames with the chemical extinguisher and was joined by night clerk Clarence Broderick. For a relieved moment they thought they had won. They hadn’t. The blaze flared up. It got too hot. It got too smoky. It forced them out. “The hall was filling with smoke then,” Saylor recalled. “I could see this man Harry pounding on the doors…I lost track of the other man, the one who helped me get Gorman out…”

Saylor said he remembered noise earlier from Gorman’s room – noise, he said, that sounded like a drinking party was in progress….

 

“There were 135 persons in the building’s 150 rooms. More than one body was found in some rooms where only one person was supposed registered. The dead were found in their beds, on the floors, pinned under timbers, cowering in corners, twisted in grotesque shapes of dying….The victims were swallowed by sheets of flame that lighted every window in the rear section of the structure….

 

“Notable among the heroes were two policemen – Patrolmen Peter Cappadonna, 35, and Don Taylor, 28. By many estimates they led some 30 persons from the building — carrying at least 10 of them out in their arms. Another patrolman said Cappadonna and Taylor ran up to the top floor and banged on doors, waking residents. When the doors were locked, they kicked them open.

 

“Mayor George Christopher personally led members of the city-county staff to the hotel, whose charred timbers lie as a stark attraction on Mission. The mayor said he would call a meeting immediately to find a way to prevent a recurrence of the tragedy – ways to tighten fire safety laws and, perhaps, ways to make the laws retroactive….” (Oakland Tribune, CA. “A Death Trap for 20.” 1-7-1961, p. 1.)

 

Jan 8: “Raymond Gorman, 62, the man officials blame for starting the Thomas Hotel fire, was released from San Francisco’s city prison late yesterday. Police are still convinced Gorman started the fire by dropping a lighted cigarette on his mattress. But Insp. Ralph McDonald of the Homicide Squad admitted last night “we don’t have enough evidence to sustain a manslaughter charge.” The death toll in the Friday fire is now 20. The shaken World War I pensioner mumbled his remorse for his part in the tragedy as he left the prison yesterday and pledged to give up drinking….

 

“Gorman’s release followed announcement that the San Francisco Grand Jury tomorrow will investigate charges by San Francisco Fire Marshall Albert Hayes that pending city legislation could have lessened the terrible toll of the tragedy. The legislation, a proposed amendment to the city housing code, would require that all multiple-story buildings have doors on each stairway landing. The importance of the law, related to Friday’s catastrophe, is that it would be retroactive to include existing structures. The absence of an enclosed stairway at the Thomas Hotel was responsible for the catastrophe speed of the blaze. Flames, smoke and heat were sucked up the stair-well to the upper floors, swiftly engulfing the entire building. Fifteen of the 20 dead were found on the top two floors of the four-story brick building. Hayes noted this with intense concern. ‘If we can close a door, we can control a fire. It could happen again. It will happen again if they do not enact legislation which would allow us to plug the chimney that spreads the fire.’” (Oakland Tribune, CA. “Suspect Freed in S.F. Fire Tragedy.” 1-8-1961, p. 1.)

 

Sources

 

National Fire Protection Association. “Fatal San Francisco Hotel Fire.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 54, No. 3, Jan 1961, frontispiece.

 

National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996, 2010. Accessed 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. “Large Loss of Life Fires of 1961,” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 55, No. 3, January 1962, pp. 327-328.

 

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

 

Oakland Tribune, CA (Al Martinez and Buck Wilson). “19 Die in S.F. Hotel Holocaust, More Bodies Hunted; 37 Hurt.” 1-6-1961, pp. 1 and 6. Accessed 11-3-2014 at: http://newspaperarchive.com/fullpagepdfviewer?img=33413963

 

Oakland Tribune, CA. “A Death Trap for 20. Open Stairway ‘Chimney’ Blamed for Fire Disaster. Couldn’t Seal Floor Landings, Flames Raced to Top of Hotel.” 1-7-1961, p. 1. Accessed at: http://newspaperarchive.com/fullpagepdfviewer?img=33413966&sterm=fire

 

Oakland Tribune, CA. “`My God!’ Plenty to Drink, then – It Started.” 1-6-1961, p. 6. Accessed at: http://newspaperarchive.com/fullpagepdfviewer?img=33378315

 

Oakland Tribune, CA. “Suspect Freed in S.F. Fire Tragedy.” 1-8-1961, p. 1. Accessed 11-3-2014 at: http://newspaperarchive.com/fullpagepdfviewer?img=33414147&sterm=fire+thomas+hotel

 

Timelines of History. Timeline San Francisco 1960-1969. Accessed 2-13-2020 at: https://www.timelines.ws/cities/SF_D_1960_1969.HTML

 

Ward, Neale. “Hotel Fires: Landmarks in Flames, History’s Famous Hotel Fires,” Firehouse, March 1978, pp. 40-45.