Today in Fire History 11/12

On 11/12/1889 the Miami Hotel a wooden 100-room building was destroyed by a fire that started from a gas stove and extended to Mrs. Maggie Knapp's restaurant, the Greet store, a boarding house, the Miami Metropolis Building, and Joseph McDonald's machine shops and stables in Miami, Florida.

On 11/12/1890 a Tampa, Florida firefighter died in the line of duty.

On 11/12/1892 two FDNY firefighters from Engine 204 in Brooklyn, New York were killed when they were caught in a floor collapse while operating at a warehouse fire. While working a line on top of piles of jute on the 5th floor of Harbeck's Store Warehouse, without warning, the floor collapsed down to the 4th. Heavy smoke prevented their rescue.

On 11/12/1926 a Framingham, Massachusetts firefighter “died after suffering the effects of smoke inhalation.”

On 11/12/1947 a Los Angeles, California firefighter died after he was ‘hit by rocks thrown at apparatus while driving Engine 16 southbound on Arroyo Seco Parkway {Pasadena Freeway} near Solano Avenue A as a cascade of rocks and bottles were thrown from a 50-foot hill overlooking the parkway. A large rock crashed through the windshield of the Engine, and hit him in the head killing him instantly.”

On 11/12/2014 a Baltimore, Maryland firefighter died at “a working structure fire in his role as an on-duty safety officer. He operated on the scene of the fire for some time. The fire was extinguished, and firefighters left the scene. The last apparatus left the scene at approximately 2:20 a.m. Beginning at 6:43 a.m., calls were received reporting a fire department vehicle still parked at the scene of the earlier structure fire. After determining which vehicle was on the scene, a fire company was sent to investigate. At 08:45, he was found in the basement of an exposer building from the earlier fire. He was deceased.”

On 11/12/2012 a pre-dawn fire killed a 30-year-old man and his three children and hospitalized the mother. The fire was caused by empty cardboard pizza boxes stored too close to a wood-burning stove in Orrington, Maine.

On 11/12/1992, an accidental fire destroyed the Dole Fresh vegetable plant in Yuma, Arizona, with an estimated loss of $16 million.  The non-combustible structure with light-gauge metal exterior walls and roof components, polyurethane foam sprayed insulation over the interior surfaces of the exterior walls and roof; wood-frame walls were constructed throughout the building in front of the foam insulation permitted washing of interior surfaces; the building was protected by an automatic sprinklers system in occupiable spaces. The fire was started by a welder installing process equipment in an addition under construction that was near completion. The fire spread in combustible concealed space between the wood-framed interior walls and the metal exterior walls where sprinklers had not been installed and extended from this area into the salad plant overwhelming the operational sprinkler systems.

On 11/12/1984 a repair plant was destroyed by a fire at  Tinker Air Force Base (Norman, Oklahoma), losses were over $244 million

On 11/12/1940 in Woodbridge, New Jersey a terrible plant explosion killed nine and damaged fourteen buildings.

On 11/12/1917 the historic Elms Hotel in Camden, Maine was destroyed by a fire that started around the kitchen chimney.

On 11/12/1910 a University building was destroyed by an electrical fire in Lincoln, Nebraska. “The fire was first discovered by employees in the administration building, who saw smoke and flame issuing from a ventilating shaft near the front of the burning structure.”

On 11/12/1900 the Poplar Bluff, Missouri Gifford House Hotel fire killed four. Originating in the rear of the three-story wood-frame hotel, the flames spread rapidly where forty-five guests and the porter occupied the building. The guests on the second and third floors were unable to escape by the stairs.

On 11/12/1896 the Trentman block, on Calhoun Street between Berry and Wayne, was damaged by fire in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

On 11/12/1883 in Atlanta, Georgia around 7:30 a.m. a thirty-five-foot section of the walls of the Kimball House collapsed into the alley in the rear of the Peachtree block of buildings in the rear of Moran's drug store that killed a man after the building was damaged by a fire.

On 11/12/1883 in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania the United States Hotel was destroyed by a fire that started around noon in the large three-story structure at the corner of Main and Centre Streets and communicated to the buildings on the north side of Centre Street. Sixteen street fronts were destroyed, and over 250 families are homeless.

On 11/12/1883 the Charleston, South Carolina Wilbur's clothing manufactory fire killed two and extended to the Robertson, Taylor & Company, wholesale grocers.

On 11/12/1880 a natural gas explosion in a coal mine killed sixty in Stellarton, Nova Scotia.

On 11/12/1864 the destruction of Atlanta began when Union General William T. Sherman ordered the business district of Atlanta to be burned before embarking on his "March to the Sea." 37 percent of the city was ruined.

On 11/12/1944, British Lancaster bombers sank the German battleship Tirpitz.

On 11/12/1954, the immigration inspection port at Ellis Island was shut down after 62 years of operation. Originally opened in 1892, New York Harbor Island was the point of entry and processing center for more than 12 million entering the U. S. It is estimated that about one-third of all Americans can trace their lineage to an ancestor who passed through Ellis Island.

On 11/12/2001 a plane crashed in Rockaway, New York, killing 265 people two months after the September 11 attacks.