Whipped Cream Difficulties

A while back, I found a book at Half-Price Books: Body 115: The Mystery of the Last Victim of the King’s Cross Fire (affiliate link, but please do not pay those prices).

Sometime around 7:30 PM on November 18, 1987, somebody threw away a lit match or a burning cigarette butt or something on the escalator at King’s Cross Station in the London Underground. Whatever was burning fell between the wooden treads and apparently landed on something flammable. Later investigation revealed that the underside of the escalator was full of discarded trash, fluff, old grease, and other things that would burn easily.

The resulting fire seemed small and easily controlled. The London Fire Brigade was dispatched at 7:36 PM. The police started evacuating the station at 7:39 PM.

A few minutes later the fire brigade arrived and several firemen went down to the escalator to assess the fire. They saw a fire about the size of a large cardboard box and planned to fight it with a water jet using men with breathing apparatus.

At 7:45 PM, the fire blew up into a flashover. 31 people died.

There was one man who was burned beyond recognition and who the authorities couldn’t identify. He became known as “Body 115”.

In 2004, the unknown man was finally identified as Alexander Fallon.

Body 115 and the King’s Cross fire fascinate me for two reasons. One is the amount of time and effort spent identifying the unknown man. The book is like a good non-fiction detective story, but with no real crime: just the search to put a name to an unknown man and maybe give his people some sense of…closure. It was an extraordinary, multiple organization effort spread across years.

I think sometimes you find people who view things with a certain exceptionalism. “Well, sure, we British would take 16 years to put a name to a unknown fire victim. Do you think they’d do that in America? They’re too busy chasing dope dealers with assault weapons.” Well, yes, actually: look up Little Miss 1565. Or the Boy in the Box. Or “Orange Socks“, to name some US specific examples.

I’m not saying the British or the Americans are superior. I’m saying I think this kind of thing happens in every country, and we don’t hear about most of them unless they grab the public’s imagination. I’m sure there are police officers in Japan or Germany trying to tie names to unknown bodies. Look at the work of EAAF, for another example.

The only exceptionalism involved here is the exceptionalism of being human, of wanting to find answers, solve mysteries, and comfort others.

The other reason King’s Cross fascinates me is the dynamics of the fire. Why did it suddenly go from “the size of a large cardboard box” and easily controllable to a massive flashover?

The Atomic Energy Research Establishment (which had a supercomputer) set up computer simulations of the fire at the request of the investigators. They found something strange: the fire actually laid down along the escalator treads, instead of burning straight up like they expected. The people who set up the simulation actually thought that their code was buggy: maybe they had gravity going the wrong way, or some mistake like that.

So the investigative teams built scale models of King’s Cross, set them on fire…and the fire behaved exactly like the simulation did. The flames laid down along the escalator. The metal sides of the escalator contained the heat and flames, and with the fire laying down on the escalator, it rapidly heated the wooden treads. The treads, under heat, started decomposing and giving off combustible gasses. At the same time, radiant heat directed upwards was heating layers of old paint above the escalator shaft. All of these things combined, but especially the “laying down” behavior of the fire, contributed to the flashover.

That phenomenon became known as the “trench effect“.

Bonus #1: this is an episode of “Seconds From Disaster” that covers the fire itself. It doesn’t spend a lot of time on Body 115, but it does give you a clear idea of what happened and the investigative process.

Bonus #2:

Fire Brigade station officer Colin Townsley was in charge of the first pump fire engine to arrive at the scene and was down in the ticket hall at the time of the flashover. He was killed in the fire; his body was found beside that of a badly burnt passenger at the base of the exit steps to Pancras Road. It is believed that Townsley spotted the passenger in difficulty and stopped to help her.

Station Officer Townsley was posthumously awarded the George Medal.

Cocoanut Grove was the worst nightclub fire and the second-worst single building fire in US history.

Those of you who didn’t obsessively read the “disasters” section of the almanac are probably asking: what was the worst?

The Iroquois Theatre was located at 24–28 West Randolph Street, between State Street and Dearborn Street, in Chicago, Illinois. The syndicate that bankrolled its construction chose the location specifically to attract women on day trips from out of town who, it was thought, would be more comfortable attending a theater near the police-patrolled Loop shopping district. The theater opened on November 23, 1903, after numerous delays due to labor unrest and, according to one writer, the unexplained inability of architect Benjamin Marshall to complete required drawings on time. Upon opening the theater was lauded by drama critics; Walter K. Hill wrote in the New York Clipper (a predecessor of Variety) that the Iroquois was “the most beautiful … in Chicago, and competent judges state that few theaters in America can rival its architectural perfections …”

It was advertised as being “absolutely fireproof”. I get the impression that “theatre” in those days was pretty much a synonym for “firetrap”.

An editor of Fireproof Magazine toured the building during construction and noted “the absence of an intake, or stage draft shaft; the exposed reinforcement of the (proscenium) arch; the presence of wood trim on everything and the inadequate provision of exits.” A Chicago Fire Department captain who made an unofficial tour of the theater days before the official opening noted that there were no sprinklers, alarms, telephones, or water connections. The captain pointed out the deficiencies to the theater’s fire warden but was told that nothing could be done, as the fire warden would simply be dismissed if he brought the matter up with the syndicate which owned the theatre. When the captain reported the matter to his commanding officer, he was again told that nothing could be done, as the theater already had a fire warden.

The video I am about to present also suggests that some of the building inspectors may have been bribed. (I know: bribes in Chicago? Who’d thunk it?)

Anyway, you probably see what’s coming. But you may not know how bad it was.

The official death toll, according to Wikipedia, was “at least 602 deaths”.

Bonus #1 and #2: a two-part documentary from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) about the MGM Grand Hotel fire of November 21, 1980.

This is a historically interesting fire. The cause of the fire was determined to be an improperly installed refrigerated display case. The copper refrigerant lines ran through the same wall and were in contact with an aluminum electrical conduit. A combination of compressor vibration and galvanic corrosion wore through the conduit and wiring, eventually causing electrical arcing and a smouldering fire. The fire eventually got large enough to become visible: one of the hotel employees sounded an alarm, but then things got really bad.

The fire spread to the lobby, fed by wallpaper, PVC piping, glue, and plastic mirrors, racing west through the casino floor at a speed of 15–19 ft/s (4.6–5.8 m/s; 10–13 mph; 16–21 km/h) until a massive fireball blew out the main entrance along the Las Vegas Strip. From the time the fire was noticed, it took six minutes for the entire building to be fully engulfed. It spread across the areas of the casino in which no fire sprinklers were installed. Eighteen people died in the casino level of the hotel.

A total of 85 people died. 61 of them were on upper levels of the hotel. They were away from the fire, but toxic gasses given off by the burning material were sucked into the air-conditioning system, stairwells, and seismic joints, killing them.

The Beverly Hills Supper Club fire was the third deadliest nightclub fire in the history of the United States.

What was the second deadliest?

I’m ashamed that I’ve never heard of this one: the Natchez Rhythm Club fire. 209 people died on April 23, 1940. It was the usual: the windows were boarded up to keep non-paying spectators from watching the performers, there were an estimated 746 people crowded into the building, and they’d decorated the place with Spanish moss strung on chicken wire…which was then sprayed with Flit.

This is a 30 minute documentary from 2012 called “The Rhythm Club Fire”.

Bonus #1 and #2: The only thing we learn from history is…that we learn nothing from history. Or, “Fire after fire, the lessons are the same…” The worst nightclub fire in US history took place on November 28, 1942. It was also the second-worst single-building fire in US history. I feel pretty confident that the vast majority of my readers have heard of this one: Cocoanut Grove.

It is estimated that, on that Saturday night, more than 1,000 Thanksgiving weekend revelers, wartime servicemen and their sweethearts, football fans, and others were crammed into a space rated for a maximum of 460 people.

…

Many patrons attempted to exit through the main entrance, the same way they had entered. The building’s main entrance was a single revolving door, which was rendered useless as the crowd stampeded in panic. Bodies piled up behind both sides of the revolving door, jamming it until it broke. The oxygen-hungry fire then leaped through the breach, incinerating whoever was left alive in the pile. Firemen had to douse the flames to approach the door. Later, after fire laws had tightened, it would become illegal to have only one revolving door as a main entrance without being flanked by outward opening doors with panic bar openers attached, or have the revolving doors set up so that the doors could fold against themselves in emergency situations.
Other avenues of escape were similarly useless; side doors had been bolted shut to prevent people from leaving without paying. A plate glass window, which could have been smashed for escape, was boarded up and unusable as an emergency exit. Other unlocked doors, like the ones in the Broadway Lounge, opened inwards, rendering them useless against the crush of people trying to escape. Fire officials would later testify that had the doors swung outwards, at least 300 lives could have been spared.

492 people died.

From the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA): “Cocoanut Grove Survivors Tell Their Stories”.

Also from the NFPA: “What we still don’t know about the Cocoanut Grove fire”.