1978 — Nov 5, Younkers Brothers Dept. Store Fire (employees), West Des Moines, IA– 10

–10 Greenpeace. PVC Fires List. June 1994.
–10 Jones. “1978 Multiple-Death Fires…” Fire Journal, Vol. 73, No. 4, July 1969, p. 38.
–10 NFPA. Investigative Report: Younkers Department Store Fire. Undated.
–10 National Fire Protection Association. 1984 Fire Almanac. 1983, p. 139.
–10 Wallace, D. In the Mouth of the Dragon: Toxic Fires in the Age of Plastics. 1990, p. 59.

Narrative Information

Greenpeace: “A fire in the Younkers Brothers department store produced a thick, black curtain of smoke that killed quickly. The toxic smoke was traced to the PVC wire insulation in the electrical system of the building.

“Twenty two people were present that Sunday morning; ten died, and at least four were injured. Two of the survivors died shortly afterwards, one of cancers and lung disease.

“The first sign of fire was a low energy explosion that occurred in the ceiling of the second floor, knocking down ceiling tiles. Immediately, a black curtain of smoke descended from the second floor ceiling in the southwest corner of the store, incapacitating all who came in contact with it almost instantaneously. Those who couldn’t flee the smoke died. The medical examiner and the forensic pathologist both concurred that the deaths occurred before the flames touched the bodies.

“The plaintiffs’ council found that the soot found in the lungs of the victims was from PVC.

“Later, it was discovered that the fire had actually started late the night before. An unspecified electrical malfunction occurred in the southeast quadrant of the second floor plenum. The wiring
involved in the malfunction overheated and decomposed. The other wiring in the area also overheated and decomposed directly from the heat radiated from the malfunction and indirectly from the hot gases generated. The overheating spread and continued for at least many hours and produced both corrosive and combustible gases.

“This occurred before workers arrived Sunday morning. One of the first to arrive went to the boiler/utility area of the store and turned on the air circulation fans. This caused the oxygen level in the effected quadrant to rise until the oxygen/fuel ratio reached the explosive level. Then the flaming stage of the fire began. The explosion knocked ceiling tiles and freed the soot and decomposition gases that had accumulated during those hours of overheating. The pressure wave and the expanding gases moved the smoke and fumes through the store. As the smoke and fumes moved through the store, they became diluted, and the acid reacted with the surrounding surfaces so that the smoke became less harmful. Those people present at the point where the smoke was first released were exposed to lethal concentrations of decomposition/combustion products almost immediately. Those farther away either became incapacitated and died later or were injured. Those farthest from the first release of the smoke were either injured or got away without permanent injury, depending on susceptibility and length of time exposed to the smoke.

“The heat from the fire traveled through the air ducts in the store and set secondary fires. At first the smoke was white and hazy, then it became black and thick. The smoke was so dense that arriving firefighters had to turn on the headlights of their rigs while they were still approaching the parking lot from the highway. In trying to get into the store, their handheld flashlamps proved useless against the pervasive darkness of the smoke.

“Of the survivors, two young people, a man and a woman, suffered frequent respiratory infections of prolonged duration. The woman also felt tired all the time, had upper respiratory membrane swelling and reddening that included sinus troubles, and was troubled by lower back pain. The young man was suddenly afflicted with high blood pressure and two types of heart problems, tachycardia and a systolic ejection murmur. An older man came down with chronic coughing, phlegm production and winter bronchitis. This man was taken to the hospital hours after the fire because of adult respiratory distress.

“The long decomposition period also explains the fire that was seen by the firefighters and attributed to natural gas. Natural gas does not burn with a green flame, such as the firefighters saw. Chlorine, however, imparts a green color to the flame. A mix of chlorinated and non-chlorinated hydrocarbons, which arise from pyrolyzing PVC, would behave like a natural gas fire and impart a green flame.

“A jury ruled that PVC caused the fire and the damage. All the plaintiffs then each settled out of court. No one went to trial to assess damages.” (Greenpeace. PVC Fires List. June 1994; cites Deborah Wallace, In the Mouth of the Dragon.)

Jones, Jon C. “1978 Multiple-Death Fires…” Fire Journal, Vol. 73, No. 4, July 1969, p. 38:
“Department Store, Des Moines, Iowa. On November 5, 1978, ten employees died in a fire in this large, two-story, unsprinklered department store. The fire occurred at approximately 9:30 am, before the store was scheduled to open for the day. Twenty-two employees were the only occupants of the building. Reports state that the fire originated in a ceiling space and was accidental. The fire spread rapidly, and the victims were trapped before they could reach exits.”

Wallace, D. In the Mouth of the Dragon: Toxic Fires in the Age of Plastics. 1990, p. 59:
“The danger of the fires discussed in this book is their speed – not necessarily the speed of the flames, but the speed at which the smoke becomes incapacitating. On November 5, 1978, a fire in the Younkers Brothers Department Store produced a thick, black curtain of smoke that killed quickly. The toxic smoke was traced to the polyvinyl chloride (PVC) wire insulation in the electrical system of the building.

“The store was located in a mall in West Des Moines, Iowa. Twenty-two people were present that Sunday morning; ten died, and at least four were injured. The first sign of fire was a low-energy explosion that occurred in the ceiling of the second floor, knocking down ceiling tiles. Immediately, a black curtain of smoke descended from the second floor ceiling in the southeast corner of the store, incapacitating all who came into contact with it almost instantaneously. The smoke rolled through the store, and those who could fled the dense blackness. Those who couldn’t died. Survivors later said that the smoke was so black and thick that it looked like rolling death.

“….The smoke was so dense that arriving firefighters had to turn on the headlights of their rigs while they were still approaching the parking lost from the highway. In trying to get into the store, their hand-held flashlamps proved useless against the pervasive darkness of the smoke. [p. 59-60]

“….The Investigation

“Shortly after the fire, the NFPA sent one of its investigators to West Des Moines to reconstruct the fire. The NFPA tries to issue a report for every fire of ten or more deaths. The report that resulted from this visit and from extensive cooperation with the Des Moines Fire Department described the store in great detail. It also included the occupancy of the store at the time of the fire, and a description of the event itself from the low-grade explosion in the plenum (the space between the ceiling of one story and the floor of the one above it) through the extensive damage that occurred after the merchandise and the furnishings were involved in the fire. The investigator who was a fire science expert, was confronted with an explosion in the plenum; with an account of greasy, extremely dense and black acidic smoke bursting from the ceiling; and with most fatality victims slowing evidence of nearly instantaneous incapacitation.

“No theory of origin or initial fuel came out of the NFPA report. The Des Moines Fire Department, with fewer resources available to it, and less pretension, turned up more evidence and tried harder than the NFPA, whose report was one of the lamest in the fire reconstruction literature. One of their main conclusions was that the store wasn’t sprinkled! Sprinklers in the habitable space would have had no effect on the events that occurred above the ceiling or on the generation of the killer smoke. The NFPA report was not only inadequate, but also unconvincing in its parroting of conventional platitudes meant to mislead….

“The Des Moines Fire Department and its consultant acted on the description of the dense, acidic smoke and on the placement of the explosion in the plenum. They generated a hypothesis that the freon in the air conditioning system interacted with the aluminum of the ducts and started a fire, and that this fire created hydrogen chloride….” [pp. 66-68]

Sources

Greenpeace. PVC Fires List. June 1994. Accessed 7-20-2017 at: http://pvcinformation.org/assets/pdf/PVC_FiresList.pdf

Jones, Jon C. “1978 Multiple-Death Fires: Smoking Materials Lead Ignition Sources.” Fire Journal, Vol. 73, No. 4, July 1969, pp. 33-40.

National Fire Protection Association. Investigative Report: Younkers Department Store Fire. Boston, MA: NFPA, undated.

National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. Quincy, MA: NFPA, 1983.

Wallace, Deborah. Chapter 4. “The Younkers Brothers Department Store Fire.” In the Mouth of the Dragon: Toxic Fires in the Age of Plastics. Garden City Park, NJ: Avery Publishing Group, 1990.