1980 — Dec 4, Stouffer’s Inn and Conference Center Fire (possibly arson), Harrison, NY-26
–26 Greenpeace. PVC Fires List. “Harrison, New York, Westchester Stouffers…” June 1994.
–26 Liebson. “Lessons of the Stouffer’s Inn fire, 25 years later.” Journal News, NY. 12-4-2005.
–26 National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996.
–26 National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. 1983, p. 137.
–26 National Fire Sprinkler Association. F.Y.I. 1999, 6.
–26 NY Times. “Families of Victims in Stouffer Inn Fire Win $48.5 Million.” 5-25-1984.
–26 U.S. Congress, House. Boarding Home Fires: New Jersey (Hearing, March 9, 1981). P.8.
–26 Wallace, Deborah. “The Stouffer’s Inn Fire. Chapter 7, In the Mouth of the Dragon. 1990.
Narrative Information
Greenpeace: “The Stouffers Inn fire was a corridor fire of the worst kind: burning floor covering, rapidly decomposing wall-covering, a relatively low and heat reflective ceiling, and a long, narrow corridor that channeled all form of fire product in one direction.
“The conference center fire originated where three corridors met, raced down the corridors, spread smoke widely and killed 26 people. The fire ignited at about 10:15 am and was discovered at about 10:20 am.
“The three major factors that determined this fire’s outcome were the two initial decomposing materials (the carpet and vinyl wall-covering), the design of the building and location of the primary fire, and the fire safety systems and procedures followed once the fire was discovered.
“Because the fire was in the corridor itself, survivors raced smoke and wall covering flames down the North corridor. Delay in reaching the decision to run that way or to jump out of a window meant death. People seemed to drop when they came into contact with the smoke because the smoke contained corrosive acid gas. The symptoms of the 24 injured survivors were typical of inhalation of acid gases. The respiratory tract is injured by the acid and the body tries to compensate for the intake of acid by what is called respiratory compensation. The respiratory
symptoms show that the whole respiratory tract could be injured in this type of smoke, from the deep lungs to the upper tract where the vocal cords sit. One survivor showed a typical delayed reaction to PVC smoke inhalation: sensitivity to dust and smoke, loss of lung elasticity (over-inflated lung), wheezing, and airways sensitization, nasal congestion, and sleep disruption.
“The rooms held a dense fuel load in the form of synthetic furniture, finishing and decorations. The walls of the corridors and meeting rooms were covered with plasticized PVC wall-covering. The carpeting and this wall-covering formed the two major fuels during the early stages of the fire. It emitted not only hydrogen cyanide, but also nitrogen dioxide, a potent pulmonary acid that turns to nitric acid in tissue. Fuels that rapidly release combustible gases at low temperatures particularly feed fires with a high-speed front.
“The floor finishing consisted of nylon/wool carpeting with jute padding, which ignites at a lower temperature than the PVC wall-covering, but PVC decomposes at and below the carpet ignition temperature. Thus along the upper wall right below the ceiling where the radiant heat accumulated, the plasticized PVC rapidly unraveled chemically and released its acid gas and combustible plasticizer.
“In most of the rooms, the wall-coverings decomposed just under the ceiling. This decomposition accounted for much of the heat damage from the fire in the rooms that had no direct fire damage. The rapid spread and density of the smoke and the rapid spread of the fire depended on corridors that were lined with combustible, toxic finishing. Because of the rapidity of the fire spread, firefighters required 45 minutes to control the blaze. PVC furniture and decorations included a PVC Christmas tree, PVC-covered and Naugahyde vinyl chairs, and PVC flooring.
“The raised roof area above the Grand Ballroom accumulated products of combustion and separated from the building when these products exploded. At this point in the fire, large quantities of fuels had been decomposed and could have generated large quantities of hydrocarbons. Nearly everything present besides the piano was plastic. All of these materials decompose to release large quantities of hydrocarbons.
“Ninety five people were present. 26 died and 24 were injured. Of the 24 injured, most suffered from smoke inhalation.
“Both the NFPA and the counsel’s experts found that the PVC wall-covering would emit large quantities of decomposition products when subjected to unusual heat. Bubbles would appear under the surface of the plastic, eventually burst the surface and release gases. Those gases would flare up an intense flame. This flame obviously contributed to the rapid, under-the-ceiling
spread of the fire along the corridors. In addition, counsel’s experts found that the gases included high levels of the acid gas hydrogen chloride, and phthalates, which are quite combustible.
“The chairs and other combustibles in the rooms that burned may have influenced the length of time the victims lived. The PVC covering on the chairs and the carbon monoxide generated by the polyester fabric and the acrylic certainly contributed to rapid death. Lab tests also showed that the wall-covering was plasticized PVC and that it emitted large quantities of hydrogen chloride and phthalate. The NBS combustion toxicologists analyzed soot samples and found elements that were consistent with a mixed origin of carpet and wall-covering….” (Greenpeace. PVC Fires List. “Harrison, New York, Westchester Stouffers…” June 1994; cites In the Mouth of the Dragon by Deborah Wallace.)
Liebson: “Harrison…. Considered the biggest disaster in Westchester County history, the fire in a conference building at Stouffer’s claimed the lives of 26 businesspeople and injured 23. Fire officials say it also prompted changes in building and fire codes across the county, state and nation. Although some 25 to 30 firefighters from Harrison and surrounding communities responded within minutes, a lack of fire sprinklers and highly flammable carpeting and wall coverings in the three-story conference building allowed the blaze to spread with stunning speed.
“That’s what Farideh Farhadi, who escaped with singed eyebrows and a mild case of smoke inhalation, remembered most. “It happened so fast,” the now 58-year-old Fort Lee, N.J., resident said. A former Nestle Co. employee who was attending a conference at Stouffer’s, Farhadi said she arrived late and ended up sitting in the back row of the room, near the exit. She said her tardiness saved her life. ‘The woman who was sitting right next to me died, and the man who was right behind me on the way out, seconds behind me, was burned very badly,’ Farhadi said. ‘I remember that he was wearing a polyester shirt that was melted onto his skin, and he was literally only a few steps behind me.…All of the people who sat in the front of the room died.’ Mignone[1] said, ‘The people who survived got out in the first six or seven minutes. The rest were dead when we got there.’
“Only one hallway area of the Stouffer’s conference building had fire sprinklers. Authorities say the loss of life there could have been avoided if what now seem like basic fire prevention measures had been required at the time. ‘There was no statewide code then,’ said Steve Rocklind, associate architect with the state Department of State’s codes enforcement division. ‘All we had was a model code that local communities could follow on a voluntary basis. The Stouffer’s fire was a major catalyst in getting the state Legislature to finally enact a statewide code and later to require fire sprinklers in hotels, motels and other buildings where people gather.’
“Professor Glenn Corbett, coordinator of fire service programs at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, noted that the Stouffer’s fire, coming less than two weeks after a blaze killed 85 guests and employees at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, was one of several major fires that prompted federal fire safety legislation covering hotels and motels to be enacted in the 1980s. ‘It certainly has its place in fire history,’ Corbett said. ‘Unfortunately, improvements to fire and building codes at all levels usually come after tragedies.’
“That continues to be a sore spot with Mignone and Dan Berry, hired to set up a fire prevention bureau in Harrison in the aftermath of the blaze. Mignone recalled that, a month before the fire, local fire chiefs had gone to the Town Board to push for updates to Harrison’s 1929 fire code. ‘They had no idea what we were talking about, and they took no action on our recommendations until after the Stouffer’s tragedy,’ he said. ‘There were sprinklers in a hallway at Stouffer’s, but none in the conference rooms, because they weren’t required. That’s one reason the fire spread so quickly.… After that a lot of communities around here started adopting fire codes.’
“Likewise, Berry said, New York had done little to establish statewide fire safety standards, despite a number of pre-Stouffer’s warnings. ‘Stouffer’s wasn’t the first bad fire we’d had,’ Berry said. ‘There was a fire at the Jewish Community Center in Yonkers (in 1965) that killed nine kids and three adults, and then in 1974 the Gulliver’s fire (in a Port Chester nightclub) killed 24 people. But those fires didn’t get the politicians excited. They didn’t do anything until business executives from Arrow Electronics and Nestle died at Stouffer’s.’
“Although the need for fire sprinklers and other safety measures had been discussed for years, Berry said, ‘The Stouffer’s fire is what finally made the fire service get up on its hind legs and start howling at both the local and state level.’ ‘I still feel that we should have gotten more done,’ Berry added. ‘I believe the state code should require sprinklers in every occupied building, period. A lot of local codes still don’t require them, and the state law doesn’t cover all occupied buildings.’” (Liebson, Richard. “Lessons of the Stouffer’s Inn fire, 25 years later.” Journal News, NY. 12-4-2005.)
Wallace: “The town of Harrison, New York is in wealthy Westchester County, just north of the Bronx. During the 1970s, Harrison grew rapidly. New homes, office buildings, restaurants, and other businesses sprung up, but Harrison did not update its building and fire code. The town retained a code from the 1950s. Under this antiquated code, the main building of the Westchester Stouffer’s Inn was issued a building permit in 1975, and a certificate of occupancy in 1978. The main building contained meeting rooms, a ballroom, and other facilities for groups, but no guest rooms. It was sometimes called The Conference Center and classified as a place of assembly. Three stories tall, it had the code classification of fire resistive, i.e., built of noncombustible materials…. [p. 123.]
“By the end of 1983, the Stouffer’s Corporation and a series of subrogation defendants agreed to a settlement of approximately $48 million with the estates of the fatality victims and with the injured guests. [pp. 123 and 125.]
“As indicated by its classification ‘fire resistive,’ the basic construction material of the building was noncombustible: steel, concrete, and glass. Smaller quantities of aluminum and stone were also used. Because of this classification, the building had few sprinklers. However, as is common to motels and hotels of the modern ‘fireproof’ construction, the rooms and corridors held a sense fuel load in the form of synthetic furnishings, finishings, and decorations. The town, like many others, had no regulations governing these products, which aren’t considered part of the building systems…. [p. 125.]
“There were a total of 95 people in six of the meeting rooms on the third floor.…the occupants of these rooms had very limited options for exits. The people in the conference rooms were executives and managers from various brewers attending a United Brewers Academy seminar and Nestles, Pepsico, General Foods, and Arrow Electronics. Besides the injuries and loss of life, the fire resulted in the demise of Arrow Electronics.
The Fire
“The origin and spread of the fire…comes to life from the eyewitness testimony in the criminal court case. The quotes below are from the digest of the criminal trail produced by the plaintiffs’ counsel. They are from four different witnesses.
She saw a fire right in the center of the carpet where her hallway intersected with the other hallway….It appeared to be a bonfire sitting in the middle of the carpet with space to the left and right. It appeared to be about five feet high and about five feet wide. It seemed to her that just the carpet was burning….It seemed like a long time while she stood and watched….Then it occurred to her it was out of control. It started to spread as she stood there. It spread both left and right, but faster to her left which was toward the Haight hallway….She decided not to go back into the room to get her materials. At that point she started to run and she ran to the right side of the fire as she passed it….The smoke was very heavy at that point; it had gotten much darker and difficult to breathe. She stopped breathing and kept running until she passed the smoke. As she reached the top of the stairs, she looked back. The smoke was clear [end of p. 126] at that point and she saw that the flames covered from the windows all the way past where she could not see them into the Haight hallway and that they were reaching up to the ceiling. The entire width of the Commons was in flames up to the ceiling.
Smoke was coming into the room like a screen. It was black. When he got to the Haight hallway and looked to his left, he saw flames and smoke an appeared to him that the flames were coming from the ceiling. It appeared to be like a fireball coming along the ceiling and being blown at them. He told people that he thought it was the wallpaper that was burning and that he couldn’t imagine the wallpaper burning that much…. [p. 127.]
“….a disproportionate number of the fatalities occurred in a small part of the total area affected by fire and/or smoke: 19 died in or near the Haight Room (73 percent), but this area constituted only a small percentage of the total area affected by fire and/or smoke. Ninety-fire occupants had been present, so slightly over one-quarter (27 percent) of those present died. Another 24 (25 percent) were injured, for a total of over half of the occupants physically affected by the fire.
“The eight fatalities in the North Corridor had all been occupants of the Disbrow A room and had time only to enter the corridor. In contrast, all but one of the occupants of the Wilson Room were able to exit the floor without fatality. The one who died was the last person to leave the room and had become disoriented by the smoke. Instead of turning left, where there was a nearby exit, he turned right and died near the exit to the Wilson Room, after being incapacitated…. [p. 128]
“The ratio of dead to injured was quite high — there were more dead than injured (26 dead, 24 injured). Nationally, for all fires, one person dies for every twenty-five persons injured….
“…this fire was hot, over 1,000° C. Firefighters were forced back by the intensity of the heat. The heat diffused through the ceiling and ignited the electrical insulation, which burns at 600° C…. [p. 129]
“The injuries and deaths occurred before firefighter arrival….” [p. 130]
“No one heard any fire alarms. This was because the fire alarms had been turned off manually, according to a hotel policy that was put into practice to reduce false alarms. The only sprinklers on the third floor activated long after people began fleeing. The architect had placed them only at the south end of the Commons. (According to the Harrison building code of that time, the hotel didn’t have to have any sprinklers at all!) People exiting from the Wilson Room, the last people on the third floor to survive, got a little shower. The first people to leave that end of the Commons came out dry…. [p. 133]
“The air handling system operated during most of the fire, and had only a few operating smoke detectors in the ducts and no automatic system of turn-off connected with the smoke detectors. It continued to operate and help circulate the smoke.
“The hotel staff was untrained in emergency procedures of this nature and some of them ended up in the hospital with smoke inhalation injuries. Indeed, the telephone operator notified the fire department only after being told by a smoke-sick employee that the alarm was real.
“At this stage of its existence, the Westchester Stouffer’s Inn main building was a big fire waiting to happen. Between the negligence of the town code, the hotel management, and the construction company and its suppliers, this fire was inevitable.
“The combination of the carpeting and wall-covering with the corridor design created a fire that moved faster than most of us could envision. Of the many witnesses who testified in the case and tried to describe the speed of the movement, one in particular conveyed the picture.
He stepped through the Haight hallway door and looked out and up. He saw a river of fire travelling at the speed of a freight train overhead beneath the ceiling and judged it to have been about two feet of pure flame and dense black smoke. . .. They came upon the doorway to the receiving area. As the flames raced down the hallway and approached the sill, it was like a liquid fire. It came down and went back up. . . . The flames were going much faster than he could go. [p. 134]
“….During the 1974-1978 period, fire reconstructionists at both the NFPA and federal government “discovered” the phenomenon of the corridor fire. Fire in carpeting that is placed in a corridor will spread with great rapidity compared with fires in a square room. This is because airflow and the fuel lie essentially along an axis, not radially. Smoke and gases also spread more rapidly down a corridor. If the ceiling and/or wall-covering also burn or emit combustible gas, the effect is greatly heightened.
“The Stouffer’s Inn fire was a corridor fire of the worst kind. Yet, the NFPA mutes the significance of the corridor configuration. Perhaps this agency was already jaded by 1981. Indeed, the NFPA report plays up the presence of the coat rack in the corridor and concludes that this is what gave the fire its intensity and rapidity. Such a conclusion flies in the face of eyewitness accounts, the chemistry of the inhaled soot, autopsy protocols, physical evidence, analysis of combustion products of carpeting and wall-covering, and hospital records of casualties. The NFPA, with its tunnel vision, distorted reality by blaming the outcome of the fire totally on code violations. The fact that its own research team saw the wall-covering bubble and burst forth with combustible, flaring gases in lab tests meant nothing to the authors of the report.
“The Stouffer’s Inn Fire combined all the worst elements of a classical corridor fire: burning floor covering, rapidly decomposing wall-covering, a relatively low and heat-reflective ceiling, and a long, narrow corridor that channeled all forms of fire product in one direction. The occupants of the meeting rooms along the corridors, especially the north corridor, raced the smoke and wall-covering-generated flames for their lives. If the coat rack had not been there, they would have had to do the same thing.
Lessons of the Stouffer’s Inn Fire
“The origin of the Stouffer’s Inn fire was attributed to arson. But for most of the fire reconstructionists and the corporation, the plaintiffs, and the firefighters, the issue of arson ranks low as a factor in this fire. It is likely that the cause of this fire will never be known for certain. It could have been arson or it could have been human error.
“For too many fire departments and newspapers, the word “arson” means that nothing else about the fire outcome is worth analyzing. The word “arson” is supposed to explain away everything, when, in fact, it explains very little. The fire had a lag phase, like all fires. It didn’t become a racing, roaring inferno immediately. Arson may or may not have been responsible for the fire’s origin. Once beyond the lag phase, many other factors interacted with the fire to lead to the deaths, injuries, and damage.
“In many of these fires, the building owners and operators believe that if they raise the issue of arson, even on the flimsiest evidence (evidence in the Stouffer’s Inn fire, while not as flimsy as usual, was not beyond reasonable doubt), that everyone involved in the case will let them off the hook…. [pp. 139-140]
“The next lesson from the fire emphasizes corporate responsibility. The fulfillment of the requirements of a local building and fire code does not necessarily mean that a corporation has fulfilled its responsibilities for the safety and health of its patrons and employees. This is because local codes frequently fall very short of reasonable standards. Many corporation think it’s economically shrewd to build factories, hotels, residential housing, or offices specifically in municipalities or counties with grossly outdated, weak codes. Short-sighted, unethical strategies of this nature generally become compounded by such tactics such as the silencing of the fire alarms by the switchboard operator in the Stouffer’s Inn.
“The laws that parcel out liability for chemical landfills can also apply to the case of toxic exposure from fires. Everyone along the chain of responsibility bears liability: the owner and operator of the corporation, the suppliers and distributors of these plastics, the original manufacturers who sold the material to the distributors, and the public and private agencies (local government and insurers who oversee these matters.) This view of liability has been borne out in litigation, including the settlement of the multitude of suits that resulted from the Stouffer’s Inn Fire. Subrogation suits abounded. Thus, the lesson on corporate responsibility is briefly, “let the buyer and the seller beware.” [p. 141]
“The third lesson teaches us what most of these large fires show — namely, that the people were killed and injured by the smoke, not the flames. The incredible speed with which the smoke moved in a wave was more of a factor in death and injury than the unusual rapidity of the flame spread, although the two obviously went together. Smoke entered rooms that had little or no fire damage and caused deaths and injuries there…. [p. 141]
“A fourth lesson from this fire that was not explicitly discussed by the National Fire Protection Association was the interaction of the placement of the particular fuels and the design of the building. The third floor consisted almost entirely of corridors and of the rooms on each side of them. Uninterrupted combustible floor covering and/or wall-covering along these corridors invited a classic corridor fire. Nothing in any of the building or fire codes discusses uninterrupted combustible finishing. The codes describe only finishing that meets certain performance standards determined by tests that have nothing to do with real fire conditions.
“It was bad enough that there was uninterrupted combustible finishing in the corridors. But worse yet were the particular individual finishings and their relative placement. The floor finishing consisted of nylon/wool carpeting with jute padding, which ignites at a lower temperature than the PVC wall-covering, but PVC decomposes at and below the carpet ignition temperature. Thus, along the upper wall right below the ceiling where the radiant heat accumulated, the plasticized PVC rapidly unraveled chemically and released its acid gas and combustible plasticizer. The carpeting on the floor and the PVC on the wall formed a long rectangle of death and injury. The carpeting and the PVC both passed the performance standards of the NFPA and ASTM (American Society for Testing Materials).
“The characteristics of corridor fires are massive heat accumulations at the ceiling and accelerated spread of heat, smoke, and fire from the directional channeling of air movement and energy. In such fires the performance standards of the NFPA and ASTM cannot protect life and health. Simply stated, synthetics should not be used freely in corridors, especially corridors of institutions and public places.
“Finally, the autopsy results and hospital records indicate that the smoke intoxicants of this fire included other toxins besides the traditional carbon monoxide and cyanide detected in the blood of the fatality victims. The victims could not move very far; they succumbed rapidly. The irritants and narcotizing organic chemicals that are present in the smoke from synthetics are famous for their ability to rapidly incapacitate. The lung edema, hemorrhaging, and irritation found during autopsy underscore the presence of corrosive irritants in the smoke. The Stouffer’s Inn fire forms another link in the chain of fatal fires in which fumes and smoke of nontraditional chemicals killed. A wrong turn was enough to fell one victim very rapidly, the last person out of the Wilson Room. Smoke from synthetics is unlike smoke from natural materials. This fact cannot be repeated enough.” [pp. 142-143] (Wallace, Deborah. “The Stouffer’s Inn Fire” (Chapter 7, pp. 123-143). In the Mouth of the Dragon: Toxic Fires in the Age of Plastics, 1990.)
Newspapers
May 25, 1984, NYT: “White Plains, May 24 — A Federal judge today announced a $48.5 million settlement of the civil suits stemming from the fire at a Stouffer’s Inn that killed 26 executives. The families of 25 of the executives as well as the 14 people who were injured in the 1980 fire will share the award. The money will be paid by 12 corporations, including the Stouffer Corporation. Judge Abraham D. Sofaer of Federal District Court here, who announced the agreement today, said it settled all civil cases brought after the fire at the hotel in Harrison, N.Y.
“Neither the amounts that each defendant will pay nor the awards that each beneficiary will receive were announced. But a lawyer for some of the defendants, David G. Miller, said the families of two unidentified victims would receive ”well over $5 million each.” Those sums, Mr. Miller said, are the highest won for any wrongful death case in New York State….
“Besides the Stouffer Corporation of Solon, Ohio, the defendants include Dalton Van Dyjk and Associates, the Cleveland architectural firm that designed the 364-room hotel complex, and the William L. Crow Construction Company of New York City, which built the $10 million project. It was completed in January 1978.
“The fire erupted on Dec. 4, 1980, in the third-floor meeting-room area of the complex on West Red Oak Lane, near Interstate 287, which is lined with office buildings in campus-style settings.
“A total of 26 people attending breakfast meetings died in the smoke and flames, including 13 employees of Arrow Electronics of Greenwich, Conn. and 11 employees of Nestle Inc. in White Plains. Nestle owns the Stouffer Corporation. Suit Settled in Houston….
“A former Stouffer’s coffee waiter, Luis Marin, was convicted of murder and arson in connection with the fire. But on April 14, 1982, the jury’s verdict was overturned by Judge Lawrence N. Martin Jr. of State Supreme Court, who was then a County Court judge. An appeal by the Westchester County District Attorney, Carl A. Vergari, to the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court, which was filed on March 17, 1983, and argued Oct. 31, is still pending, Anthony A. Molea, first deputy district attorney, said today….
“The Town of Harrison was one of five defendants named in the suits. But under the terms of the agreement, Harrison will not have to share in the payments….
“In addition to Crow, Stouffer’s and Dalton Van Dyjk, the defendants are the Edwards Company, a division of the General Signal Corporation, of Greenwich, which manufactured Stouffer’s fire-alarm and smoke-detection systems; West Fair Electric Contractors, of Hawthorne, N.Y., which installed the systems; Fire Systems Inc., also of Hawthorne, which designed the wiring for those systems, and Byers Engineers Associates, of Cleveland, engineers for all of Stouffer’s electrical and mechanical systems. Also, Partitions Inc., of New York City, which manufactured interior walls for the conference area; Denk-Kish Associates, of Cleveland, electrical engineers, which replaced Byers after construction began; Shelby-Williams Inc., a North Carolina concern that produced chair coverings; J. Josephson Inc., of Hackensack, N.J., maker of polyvinyl-chloride wall coverings, and Firth Carpets Inc., of New York City, which manufactured some of the carpeting in the fire area.” (New York Times (Franklin Whitehouse). “Families of Victims in Stouffer Inn Fire Win $48.5 Million.” 5-25-1984.)
June 12, 1985, AP: “Albany, N.Y. — The state’s top court Tuesday upheld a decision throwing out murder and arson convictions against a former waiter in a 1980 Stouffer’s Inn fire that killed 26 persons in Westchester County. The New York Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that prosecutors failed to prove Luis Marin set the fire. A jury had convicted him, but the trial judge overturned the verdict. The court said in a 6-0 opinion that circumstantial evidence used to show Marin was at the scene of the start of the blaze “was not sufficient.” The court also said the prosecution claim that Marin was motivated to start the fire because he was upset that he was about to be fired for being an illegal alien “does not establish any element of the crime.”” (Associated Press. “N.Y. Court Upholds Reversal of Murder Conviction in Fire.” Los Angeles Times, 6-12-1985.)
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Liebson, Richard. “Lessons of the Stouffer’s Inn fire, 25 years later.” Journal News, NY. 12-4-2005. Accessed at: http://www.lohud.com/article/20051204/NEWS02/512040360/Lessons-Stouffer-s-Inn-fire-25-years-later
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United States Congress, House of Representatives. Boarding Home Fires: New Jersey (Hearing before the Select Committee on Aging, 97th Congress, 1st Session, March 9, 1981, Keansburg, NJ). Washington, DC: GPO, 1981.
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[1] Assistant Chief, Purchase Fire Department in 2005.