On December 5, 1876, a major fire occurred in the Brooklyn Theater in New York when a stage backdrop ignited and 295 people were killed (Robertson, 1989, p. 8). Unfortunately, the tragedy of the Brooklyn Theater fire was followed by a fire in the Iroquois Theater in 1903, which was considered Chicago's safest theater at the time. A light set a curtain on fire and because there was insufficient planning for egress in case of a fire, human logjams and inadequate venting caused the death of 603 people. The Iroquois Theater fire, however, did provide substantial impetus to the fire prevention movement, especially in the field of public assembly occupancies (Robertson, 1989, p. 8). This paper surveys several fires that have occurred in public assembly occupancies since these earlier fires to review the social, economic and political impact each has had on our society. In particular, the paper surveys those fires that have caused significant loss of life, namely the Cocoanut Grove Lounge fire in Boston, Massachusetts, the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in Southgate, Kentucky, and the Happy Land Fire in Bronx, New York.
For twelve minutes on the night of November 28, 1942, fire tore through the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in the Bay Village section of Boston. When firefighters finally finished dousing what remained of the club, they counted 492 people dead among the smoldering ruins. Thus, in 1942, the Cocoanut Grove fire became the worst building fire in United States history when based on sheer loss of life (Benzaquin, 1959, p. 231). Today, it still ranks as one of Boston's worst disasters and one of its greatest mysteries. The precise cause of the fire has never been determined. While some researchers attribute the blaze to a busboy's match, others have blamed faulty wiring. Nonetheless, all agree that the club's failure to provide sufficient emergency exits was primarily responsible for the massive loss of life (Burke, 1999).
The Cocoa...