1972 — Jan 16, Fire, Pennsylvania House Hotel (residential-transient), Tyrone, PA — 12

–12 Jones, J.C. “A Brief Look At The Hotel Fire Record.” NFPA Fire Journal, May 1981, p.40.
–12 NFPA. “Multiple-Death Fires, 1972,” Fire Journal, Vol. 67, No. 3, May 1973, p. 72.
–12 NFPA. Summary of Fire Incidents 1934-2006 in Hotel Fires in the United States. 2008.
–12 National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. Quincy, MA: NFPA, 1983.
–12 Peterson. “Pennsylvania House Hotel Fire, Tyrone [PA].” Fire Journal, 66/3, May 1972, 29.

Narrative Information

National Fire Protection Association: “…only two of the 14 occu¬pants of the hotel were able to escape an early morn¬ing fire. Open stairways and nonfirestopped walls to¬gether with lack of any fire detection system allowed the fire to spread extensively before discovery.” (NFPA. “Multiple-Death Fires, 1972,” Fire Journal, Vol. 67, No. 3, May 1973, p. 72.)

Peterson: “Only two persons were able to escape from the Pennsylvania House Hotel when flames quickly spread through the building on January 16, 1972, leaving 12 others dead. The hotel building was typical of many old, small community hotels built to serve the travelers of 75 years ago – hotels that for the most part have been replaced by motels as transportation has changed through the years. The owners of older buildings have attempted to keep a hotel business going, with the result that many of the hotels have changed in character, serving as residential hotels for local citizens rather than lodging a transient population. In this case the building served as a residence for the owner and his family as well as a combination residential-transient hotel.

“The building was originally constructed around 1898, but it had been modified and added to over the years. At the time of the fire the configuration was a rec¬tangular first story 80 feet deep and 55 feet wide, with two U-shaped upper stories 45 feet deep by 55 feet wide. The U opened to the rear.

“The wood building…had a partial brick veneer facing on the front. The interior partitions and ceilings were wood lath and plaster. Some wood paneling had been added on the first story for interior finish. The floors were wood, cov¬ered in some areas with tile or linoleum.

“The first story contained the hotel lobby, a bar, a barber shop, a large room used by the owner as a family room, a kitchen, a liquor storage room, and miscellaneous small storage areas. The second and third stories contained 25 guest rooms as well as storage rooms and separate bath and toilet facilities.

“An open stairway that ran from the hotel lobby to the second-story corridor served as the main means of egress from the upper floors. There was another stairway that ran from the kitchen to the second-story corridor, but it was used only by the owner’s family. Each end of the second-story corridor had access to an exterior wood fire escape, which consisted of a wood platform across the first-story roof at the rear of the building and a flight of stairs to the ground. An exterior wood stairway at each end of the third- story corridor ran to the roof of the rear of the first story. A single interior open stairway ran from the second-story corridor to the third-story corridor.

“The width of the corridors in the upper stories and the width of the interior stairways are not known. Persons familiar with the building before it was de¬stroyed by fire report the stairways and corridors were narrow. There was no automatic fire suppression or detection equipment in the hotel….

“The electrical service for the hotel was probably in¬stalled in 1942 ( a previous owner reported that the hotel had been rewired that year). Additional electric circuits were added over the years, increasing the load but not the size of the service. The electric meter, main disconnect switch, and fuse boxes were located in a small room between the bar and the hotel lobby. That room, approximately 4 feet wide and 20 feet long, was also used for storing tools and hotel maintenance sup¬plies, including floor care materials, paint, turpentine, and other combustible liquids.

“A few weeks before the fire the owner reportedly had had trouble with the electric wiring. The fuses in the main disconnect panel were blowing. An electrician was called to survey the job of rewiring the hotel, but when the electrician was ready to start, the hotel owner dismissed him, saying that he had resolved the prob¬lem. What he had reportedly done was to increase the size of the fuses in the main disconnect.

“At approximately 2:30 a.m. on January 16, 1972, the owner smelled wire insulation burning and attempted to determine the source of the burning. The bartender, who was still working, later said the owner searched throughout the first-story area — including the closet where the electrical panels were located — for the source of the burning odor. When he was unable to find any burning or to locate the source of the odor, he went to bed. The bartender left the building about 10 minutes later. He was the last known person to leave the building that night.

“At 5:25 a.m. on January 16, a man living in an apartment down the street but on the same side as the hotel looked out his window to see, reflected in the windows of buildings across the street, flames coming from the hotel: while he went to investigate he asked his wife to call the Fire Department.

“Arriving fire fighters found the fire already pushing out the front windows in the first story and breaking through the roof. The severity of the fire prevented any attempt to enter the building. One resident living in a room in the third story awoke when he thought he heard someone knocking on his door. Opening the door, he found the corridor full of hot smoke, which he reported as black and greasy. Unable to enter the cor¬ridor, he closed his door again. As his room was at the rear of the building, he jumped to the roof over the rear of the first story and used the fire escape to reach the ground. Another resident, who lived in a room at the rear of the second story, also awoke to find the corridor full of smoke; he went out his window to the first-story roof and down the fire escape. These were the only two persons to escape from the building.

“With the hotel fully involved with fire and the exposure to the north rapidly becoming involved, the Tyrone Fire Department immediately set up master- stream devices to cut off fire spread. At the time the temperature was 10° F below zero and the wind was blowing 30 mph. Two other fire departments were dis¬patched to assist at the fire, as were ambulances from the entire area.

“The fire took several hours to control and extinguish. The hotel was completely destroyed, having collapsed onto the first floor. The roof was burned off the two-story exposure (the north side of the hotel), and the re¬mainder of that building received severe damage. The next building, to the north, also a two-story frame building, which abutted the first exposure, was also severely damaged. The four-story building abutting to the south received damage from heat, smoke, and water more than direct fire damage. The property loss was estimated at S60,000 to the hotel and $7-10,000 to the exposures. Thirty-one fire fighters suffered in¬juries.

“But the real loss in this fire was the loss of 12 lives. The owner lived in the hotel with his wife and five children, who ranged in age from one year to 13 years old. All seven died in the fire. The family all occupied rooms on the second floor at the front of the hotel. Besides the owner and his family, five registered guests died, three of them in rooms in the third story and two in rooms in the second story.

“Although the complete destruction of the building made it difficult to reconstruct all the events, the location of many of the bodies indicated the victims died before they could leave their rooms. The body of one of the owner’s daughters was found in a location that indicated she had been trying to get down the corridor to the rear fire escape: she had almost reached that point.

“The origin of the fire was determined to be in the closet between the bar and the hotel lobby. It appears logical that the overloaded electrical service was re¬sponsible for the start of the fire. The fact that the main disconnect fuses were blowing indicates that the entire electrical requirement for the hotel exceeded the service capacity. The open stairways and nonfire¬stopped walls together with lack of any fire detection system allowed the fire to spread extensively before discovery. In all too many cases unconcern for basic fire protection exists; and such unconcern will result in a continuation of such occurrences in this type of building.” (Peterson, Carl E. “Pennsylvania House Hotel Fire, Tyrone, Pennsylvania. NFPA Fire Journal, Vol. 66, No. 3, May 1972, pp. 29-32.

Sources

Jones, Jon C. “A Brief Look At The Hotel Fire Record.” NFPA Fire Journal, May 1981, p. 40.

National Fire Protection Association. “Multiple-Death Fires, 1972,” Fire Journal, Vol. 67, No. 3, May 1973, pp. 71-74 & 102.

National Fire Protection Association. Summary of Fire Incidents 1934-2006 in Hotel Fires in the United States as Reported to the NFPA, with Ten or more Fatalities. Quincy, MA: NFPA, One-Stop Data Shop, Fire Analysis and Research Division, January 2008, 4 pages. Accessed at: http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/Press%20Room/Hotelfirefatalitiesreport.pdf

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

Peterson, Carl E. “Pennsylvania House Hotel Fire, Tyrone, Pennsylvania. NFPA Fire Journal, Vol. 66, No. 3, May 1972, pp. 29-32.