PATIENTS SAFE

WYOMING STATE HOSPITAL

On Jan. 4, 1897, fire destroyed the Wyoming State Hospital in Rock Spring, Wyoming. All patients were safely evacuated. The institution was rebuilt and renamed the Wyoming General Hospital.

    DENVER   

FIRE JOURNAL

Colorado & Wyoming Fire Service History  wb2kqg@arrl.net

Courtesy of Vinny Del Giudice, historian, chronicler and reluctant fireman

Member, IFPA and Denver Firefighters Museum 

Fire Dept. photo

Chief Healy and his car - "DFD No. 1" 

On Feb. 17, 1932, John Healy,  Denver fire chief for 33 years, had a brush with eternity at 16th and Larimer.

The Barnett Building was ablaze.

Frozen hose spray  glazed streets, trolley lines and fire crews.

Six firefighters and a watchman suffered burns and smoke inhalation.

"Fire Chief Healy, veteran smoke eater and one of the best known firefighters in the county, narrowly escaped death," the Associated Press reported.

The chief remained on the job until the 1940s, when he died of natural causes.

[SOURCE: Evening edition, Daily Gazette of Berkeley, California, 2/17/32, Page 3]

CLASSIC RESCUE!

1915: Woman wraps arms around Denver firefighter.

Photo: Hewit Institute website

CANYON HOTEL

On Aug. 8, 1960, fire destroyed the derelict Canyon Hotel at Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.

Photo: National Park Service

COAL SEAM FIRE - 2002

Ambulance passes residents evacuating Glenwood Springs, Colorado, after Coal Seam fire jumped Colorado River.

June 8, 2002

Photo: Bryan Dahlberg/FEMA News Photo 

UNION PACIFIC

Fire destroyed the Union Pacific Railroad depot in Laramie, Wyoming, on Oct. 17, 1917 

Photo: Wyoming Tales and Trails

BLACKWATER

On Aug. 21, 1937, fire killed 15 firefighters and injured 38 others in Shoshone National Forest, near Cody, Wyoming - a tragedy known as the "Blackwater Fire." Lightning ignited brush near Blackwater Creek and the fire burned for two days before being detected. When fire crews reached the scene, flames covered 200 acres.

Photo: National Park Service 

 WEST METRO FIRE & RESCUE

Smoke shrouds Lakewood, Colorado, on Aug. 4, 2008, as a brush fire roars on Green Mountain. 

"Swirling winds really hampered our firefighters," said Michelle French, a spokeswoman for the West Metro Fire/Rescue Authory, quoted by The Denver Channel.

Authorities ordered the evacuation of a dozen homes, but damage was limited.

The flames scorched 300 acres.

An aircraft carrying fire retardant and a helicopter carrying water provided support for West Metro and other fire crews.

Photo: Michael Rieger/FEMA

The explosion killed 22 people including Peter Gumry, proprietor.

Newspapers published graphic details of the disaster. The hotel was located on Lawrence Street between Seventeenth and Eighteenth streets.

"The firemen, with light and torch, entered all parts of the hotel," according to a daily quoted by an insurance journal. "Out of the pile of brick, wood and iron below came feeble moans and piteous cries."

James Murphy, trapped in the ruins, pleaded with firemen to amputate his leg. Moments later a wall collapsed and buried Murphy. He died.

M.E. Letson, a dairyman, who waited 10 hours for rescuers to reach him, told a newspaper correspondent of his ordeal:

"You cannot have the slightest idea of my feelings as I lay there in the bottom of the basement with all the ruins on top and around me, hearing the excruciating cries of the dying and those in agony and being almost overcome by the shock, and also soaked with water and almost drowned and fearing that the next minute I would be buried alive."

Three Denver firemen - P. Gilchrist, J.E. Troy and Louis Maguire - were injured when a wall collapsed and "were almost suffocated to death by smoke and dust," according to a dispatch published in a New Jersey newspaper. [Daily True American of Trenton] The firemen were treated at the county hospital "where it was found they were not seriously injured."  

Boiler operator Helmuth Loescher fled Denver and was returned to face investigators.

A coroner's jury determined it was impossible to assign blame, according to October 1895 edition of The Locomotive, a publication of the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company. [Google Books archive]

'Cries of a babe and the moans of men and women could be heard, but the flames and smoke increased, and finally the voices were all silenced'

From daily newspaper account 

However, the jury assailed Gumry and his business partner for allowing Loescher to work long hours; censured Loescher for negligence; and criticized the city boiler inspector for lax procedures and standards.

Excerpt of verdict [Chronicling America]:

"From the testimony submitted, which was conflicting, we are unable to fix the responsibility for the disaster upon any one person, but we believe the owners and managers, Peter Gumry and Robert C. Greiner, were blamable for requiring of the engineer sixteen hours' work out of twenty-four - a request far beyond the ability of any man to endure and perform good work; also for employing an engineer whose habits were dissipated and unreliable, and whose experience did not justify them in placing him in such a responsible position, all of which were well known to them.

"We find that the engineer, Helmuth Loescher, had been drinking on the night of the disaster, and further, he had not examined the safety valve to the boiler for two months, proving him unfit to occupy any position where security to life and property depends upon the faithful performance of duty."

Jury members: K. G. Cooper, F. B. Croke, F. E. Edbrooke, Charles W. Babcock, Frank M. Demange and R. W. Speer.

CRIPPLE CREEK 

Conflagrations were a common hazard in the 1800s and early 1900s. There were no construction standards. Most buildings were made of wood. On April 29, 1896, fire left 1,000 people homeless in Cripple Creek, Colorado. 

Rapid Spread

Walls collapsed as flames devoured the Central Block in downtown Pueblo on Aug. 29, 1953.

O.G. Pope, 88, an attorney who had an office and apartment in the building, was the sole fatality.

As the building crumbled, "We started running fast. Don't know where, just fast," said C.C. Wood, a Pueblo fire captain.

According to the Pueblo Fire Museum, flames broke out in the basement of the Standard Paint and Glass Co., and spread to the Cosmopolitan Hotel, the Central Block and finally the McCarthy Building.

The red sandstone Central Block was built in 1890 and featured a large court that stretched five stories.

It had 160 offices at the time.

Photo: Pueblo Fire Museum - Hose Co. No. 3

WYOMING REFINERY FIRE

On June 17, 1921, lightning set ablaze the Midwest Refining Co. tank farm in Casper, Wyoming. Flames raged for 48 hours and consumed 360,000 barrels of oil even after the application chemicals, according to the Associated Press.

 'I saw a flash...'

TUNNEL OF FLAMES

• Tragedy at Elitch's
• Fire Engulfed Ride
• Six Perished 

Smoke blackened the "Old Mill" boat ride, which featured colorful vessels and oil-painted canvas scenes.

Six people died. Four of the dead were soldiers and their wives. Two worked at the park and rushed into the flames to save the others. 

"Flames were still at their height when firemen crashed through the walls of the Old Mill with axes," the Associated Press reported.

William Kilbourne, a soldier from Louisville, Kentucky, was credited with saving lives by pushing boats out of the tunnel.

"I heard a scream and looked back over my shoulder," Kilbourne said. "I saw a flash of flame in other boat or beside it."

The tragedy led to reforms in the municipal fire code.

"For nearly an hour firemen feared the entire million dollar park would be burned down"

- International News Service

THE VICTIMS 

• Pvt. Robert McIivain; wife Mary, Emporia, Kansas
• Pvt. R.L. Jacobberger; wife Maxine, Hollywood, California
• Attendant George Keithline, 16
• Attendant Edward Lowery, 30

[From United Press story printed in New York Times, Associated Press story printed in Milwaukee Journal and International News Service story printed in St. Petersburg Times]

HEROES ALL

Camp Carson 

On Jan. 17, 1950, a wildfire flashed across Camp Carson near Colorado Springs, claiming the lives of eight soldiers and a teenage volunteer fighting the blaze. Winds of 60 mph fueled flames that started near the Broadmoor Hotel. 

 Holiday Pursuit in Downtown Denver

By The United Press

DENVER - "Julius Caesar," a milk wagon horse with a sense of humor, and the Denver Fire Department gave Christmas shoppers a treat when they played "tag" in the main business section Saturday.

Julius, as a rule, goes about his business like any ordinary horse, but when an oil stove in the wagon exploded while the driver was delivering a bottle of milk, he broke away.

As Julius kicked up the snow in a burst of speed down a busy avenue, scattering bottles of milk, six fire trucks took up the pursuit.

The firemen "tagged" Julius after a chase of five blocks and extinguished the blaze.

[Pittsburgh Press - Dec. 22, 1929 - Page 2]

GREAT FIRE OF VICTOR

Dynamite Failed to Arrest Conflagration

On Aug. 21, 1899, fire destroyed 14 blocks of Victor, Colorado, leaving the gold mining town's business district in ashes.

Firefighters failed to contain the flames even after turning to  dynamite to topple buildings, most of which were made of pine timber.

A train rushed firefighters from other cities, according to a dispatch in the Boston Evening Transcript.

A year earlier, fire destroyed the city jail, which was also made of timber, killing several inmates. 

WELCOME TO THE NEWEST MEMBER OF THE FIRE JOURNAL GROUP

 DENVER FIRE JOURNAL 

Preserving Fire Service History

Bravery and Sacrifice of Black Firemen

On March, 23, 1895, four Denver firefighters died when a floor collapsed during a fire at the St. James Hotel.

They were:

• Capt. Harold Hartwell
• Frederick Brawley
• Richard Dandridge
• Stephen Martin

With the exception of their captain, Hose 3's firemen were African-American. At the time, the Denver Fire Department, like many other U.S. fire departments, was segregated.  

The Denver correspondent of The New York Times wrote:

"All but one member of Hose Company No. 3 lost their lives. The unfortunate men were groping about in the blinding smoke in the rotunda and the cement floor gave way, precipitating them into the basement, where they were mangled and suffocated."

WYOMING WILDLAND FIREFIGHTERS

Fort Washakie, Wyoming, June 12, 2000 - FEMA Helitack command post coordinating aerial firefighting and reconnaissance.

 Photo: Andrea Booher/ FEMA News Photo  

Oxygen pumped into the well sustained David during the four-hour drama.

"He screamed all the time he was in the hole," said George Moorehead, fire chief of Aurora. "But the minute we laid hands on him, he gave us a feeble smile and stopped.

"He knew he was OK," Moorehead said in an Associated Press story printed in the Sunday News-Press of St. Joseph, Missouri.

DENVER FIRE JOURNAL

Protecting Fire Service History

The DENVER FIRE JOURNAL is written and edited by Vinny Del Giudice, Historian, Fire & Rescue Service. (This is a hobby. Suggestions welcomed.)

wb2kqg@arrl.net

TURKEY SHOOT

ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo., Dec. 15 (AP) - Firemen rushed into J. H. Cox's blazing shooting gallery, only to rush right out again. Eleven ducks and seventeen turkeys intended as prizes to marksmen protested loudly as they roasted, but the firemen were busy dodging 4,000 rounds of exploding rifle ammunition.

[Dallas Morning News - December 1930]

'HOW I SPENT SUMMER VACATION' 

From Dallas Morning News - July, 9 1935

CONIFER, Colo., July 8 (AP) - Nine Denver school children, seven of them girls, put out a forest fire started Monday by a bolt of lightning that struck near them and knocked them to the ground. Dazed for a moment, they arose and beat out the fire with sticks and dirt.

EDITOR'S CHOICE

Denver in Flames

In Denver in Flames, Denver Post columnist Dick Kreck recounts the triumphs and tragedies of the Mile High City's firefighters. More than a history of the city's great fires, Denver in Flames paints a moving portrait of heroism and tragedy. Published by Fulcrum Publishing, 2000.

5280 FIRE: Best Fire Buff Site in West

This website has it all. Alerts. News. Photos. Live Dispatch. Visit 5280fire.com

NATIONAL GUARD

1157th Firefighters of Colorado Army National Guard participate in aircraft drill at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs on June 9, 2011

U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Zachary T. Sheely, Colorado National Guard

FIRE JOURNAL

An early accomplishment was special coverage of the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon, which is located in Arlington.

Several years later, the Arlington Fire Journal debuted on the Internet as a blog, and coverage of other cities - London, England; Springfield, Ohio; Paterson, N.J. - soon followed.

Enjoy the newest member of the group:

 DENVER FIRE JOURNAL

Vinny - Oct. 9, 2011

This is a hobby. Suggestions welcomed.