Today in Fire History 2/25
On 2/25/1882 a Corvallis, Oregon firefighter died at a grain mill fire when a wall of the structure collapsed and fell on him.
On 2/25/1900 a Detroit, Michigan firefighter died of the injuries he sustained after being caught under a falling smokestack.
On 2/25/1904 a Manhattan, New York (FDNY) firefighter “died of pneumonia, which was the result of the severe exposure he was subjected to while operating on mutual aid at the Great Baltimore Fire on February 7, 1904. He had operated for 22 hours straight in bitter cold temperatures.”
On 2/25/1936 a Terre Haute, Indiana firefighter “was overcome by smoke while operating at a residential fire which resulted from a coal oil stove. He was taken to Union Hospital and died a short time later.”
On 2/25/1940 a Detroit, Michigan firefighter “died from the injuries he sustained after being caught in a building collapse.”
On 2/25/1956 an Atlanta, Georgia firefighter “while operating at a fire in a two-story brick commercial structure at 737 West End Avenue, housing a grocery store and beauty shop, became severely overcome by smoke and gases, and died shortly after being taken to the hospital.”
On 2/25/1963 a Baltimore, Maryland firefighter died “while fighting a five-alarm fire in a five-story brick drug warehouse. At the height of the fire, the roof caved in down to the third floor. While climbing a ground ladder, the firefighter suddenly collapsed and died. The charred body of a civilian workman was later found in the ruins of the structure.”
On 2/25/1974 a Tacoma, Washington firefighter died “while operating at a two-alarm restaurant fire, which was started when a burglar attempted to cut open a safe with a torch. He became trapped when the roof collapsed. The fire had started in a windowless area and burnt through the partitions and joists. He died as a result of smoke and heat inhalation after his air supply ran out.”
On 2/25/1975 two Lynchburg, Virginia firefighters “died as a result of injuries they sustained during a fire in the 700 block of Main Street.”
On 2/25/1987 a Memphis, Tennessee firefighter died from “injuries he sustained while operating at a fire when a wall collapsed at Design Spec. Seating Company 338 Hernando Street. The fire was determined to be arson and started in an abandoned house next door. Two other firefighters were also seriously injured.”
On 2/25/1987 a Dallas, Texas firefighter “died as a result of injuries he sustained while operating at a two-alarm dwelling fire.”
On 2/25/1992 a New York, New York (FDNY) firefighter “died when Rescue 4 responded to an arson-caused structure fire in a multi-story‚ mixed-use structure. While performing search and rescue operations searching for possible victims on the 2nd-floor‚ he crashed through the front windows from an explosion and fell from the second-floor window landing head-first. He sustained and succumbed to severe injuries.”
On 2/25/1977 a fire at the five-star international Rossiya Hotel (also known as Russia Hotel) in Moscow, Russia killed forty-two and injured fifty-two including thirteen firefighters. The 21-story hotel adjacent to Red Square, opened in 1967, could accommodate over 4,000 guests in 3,200 rooms, and 245 half suites. The building also had a post office, a health club, a nightclub, a movie theater, a barbershop, a police station with jail cells behind unmarked black doors in proximity to the barbershop, as well as the 2500-seat State Central Concert Hall. “The officially announced cause of the fire was that the radio engineers of the hotel left a switched-on welder in their room, which started the fire at 8:40 p.m. The abundance of synthetic materials helped the fire to spread at a very high speed. Two of the engineers were sentenced to 1 and 1.5 years in prison. The third engineer committed suicide and was found dead two days later.” The Rossiya Hotel closed on January 1, 2006, and has been demolished.
On 2/25/2009 three people were killed in a mobile home fire in Walla Walla, Washington.
On 2/25/1984 an oil pipeline explosion killed 508, mostly young children in a shantytown of Cubatão, Brazil, 30 miles southeast of Sao Paulo. Highly combustible octane gasoline entered the ditches when workers opened the wrong pipeline.
On 2/25/1913 the Fisher House in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania fire killed a mother and her three children. “The woman had left her children alone in the house while she went on an errand to a grocery store. When she returned she discovered the house in flames.”
On 2/25/1907 the Altoona, Pennsylvania Lyric Theatre burned “supposed to have been caused by cross electric wires.”
On 2/25/1904 three people died in the McAleer House (boarding house) fire in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
On 2/25/1866 the Mercer County (Pennsylvania) Court House was destroyed by fire. “It was first discovered in the cupola and was thought to have started through stovepipes that had been rearranged the week before to accommodate cooking stoves brought into the building for some type of festival that used the Court House.”
On 2/25/1863 the DuPont Powder Mill explosion killed thirteen in Wilmington, Delaware.
2/25/1890 Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov was born in Kurkaka, Russia. “The name "Molotov cocktail" was coined by the Finns during the Winter War, called Molotovin koktaili in Finnish. The name was a pejorative reference to Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, who was one of the architects of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed in late August 1939. The name's origin came from the propaganda Molotov produced during the Winter War, on Soviet state radio that bombing missions over Finland were airborne humanitarian food deliveries for their starving neighbors. As a result, the Finns sarcastically dubbed the Soviet cluster bombs "Molotov bread baskets. When the hand-held bottle firebomb was developed to attack and destroy Soviet tanks, the Finns called it the "Molotov cocktail", as "a drink to go with his food parcels".
On 2/25/1938 in the city of Miami, Florida the 1st drive-in movie theater.
On 2/25/1870 Hiram Rhoades Revels, from Natchez, Mississippi, a Republican, was sworn into the US Senate, becoming the 1st African American to sever in Congress.
On 2/25/1862, the US Congress passes the Legal Tender Act, authorizing the use of paper money for government bills