This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------4048486887D3019FA04E2E44 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thought you might be interested in a more complete description of the Records Centre Fire and why we cannot get our service records. This came through on the St. Louis List. Marty is a retired engineer who was with the City of St, Louis for many year and is very knowledgeable. He is very active in "the list", a storehouse of information and certainly an asset for many of us. Cheers!!!!! Roland Bauer on the river bluffs east of St. louis --------------4048486887D3019FA04E2E44 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Return-Path: StLouis-MO-L-request@rootsweb.com Received: from bl-11.rootsweb.com (bl-11.rootsweb.com [204.212.38.27]) by postal.accessus.net (8.9.2/8.9.1) with ESMTP id MAA73212 for <rrbauer@accessus.net>; Sun, 1 Aug 1999 12:52:45 -0500 (CDT) Received: (from slist@localhost) by bl-11.rootsweb.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id KAA18763; Sun, 1 Aug 1999 10:50:06 -0700 (PDT) Resent-Date: Sun, 1 Aug 1999 10:50:06 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <37A4886D.386D@primary.net> Date: Sun, 01 Aug 1999 12:48:29 -0500 From: marty walsh <mpwengr@primary.net> Organization: n/a X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01KIT (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 Old-To: iceman70@hal-pc.org Old-CC: StLouis-MO-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Records xenter fire Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Resent-Message-ID: <GLl8h.A.gkE.NjIp3@bl-11.rootsweb.com> To: StLouis-MO-L@rootsweb.com Resent-From: StLouis-MO-L@rootsweb.com X-Mailing-List: <StLouis-MO-L@rootsweb.com> archive/latest/5177 X-Loop: StLouis-MO-L@rootsweb.com Precedence: list Resent-Sender: StLouis-MO-L-request@rootsweb.com iceman70@hal-pc.org asked today if anyone had info on the 1973 records center fitre in St Louis County: Rhonda: You asked today if anyone had memories of that fire in July 1973-the records center was a plan view 600'x300'5 story and basement facillity on its own fenced campus south side of 9200 block of Page Ave 3 blocks west of Woodson Road and 1 block East of Diehlman Road located in the City of Overland in NW St Louis County. It broke out in the middle of the top (5th)floor- the federal government being and still continuing exempt from local/state building codes chose to omit automatic fire sprinkler protection long required by asll 3 model building codes for that use-furthermore that floor was totally undivided,open end to end- the storage was not in metal cabinets nor even on metal shelves but instead used heavy duty fibreboard combustible 4 drawer cabinets.When they ran out of room they stacked 2 drawer fibreboard containers on top of those. Somehow on themorning of the fire the fronts of a combustible cabinet caught fire on the center of the west one third of the 5th floor.(it was never determined if it was a cigarette,extension cords,or arson) Anyway the smoke detection system on 5 duly alarmed to the on site security office which instead of phoning the fire dept immediately then investigating-went up to investigate first using the elevator-seeing a fire on exitting the elevator the guard radioed the security station which then phoned the Community Fire OProtection District who were and are a full paid fire district with 3 fire stations and 3 first line engines plus one ladder truck-all 3 of their stations were less than a 3 minute run from the center-as they arrived they saw the glass shattering on the NW corner of the 5th floor-they both set up their ladder truck at that corner plus sent an interior attack team up one of the 4 fire rated enclosed stairwells to that floor to do an internal attack using the fire hose standpipe line inside that stairwell-when they opened the door, smoke was 4 ft thicj from the concrete underrside of the roof halfway to the floor-heat was building fiercely-they played a hose stream from the protection of the stair enclosure,but the fire was way beyond control now- 2nd,3rd,4th,5th 6th and 7th alarms were struck drawing virtually every fire unit in North/Northwest and West St Louis County-by noon the top drawers of entire 3 acre 5th floor records were on fire and all perimeter 1800 ft of curtain wall glass windiows on the perimeter had either broken out from heat or broken in from 10 ladder truck deluge streams. I first knew of the fire when at 4pm that day while flying back to St Louis from Dallas on Ozark Airlines DC-9 the captain while we were 30 miles out pointed out the smoke column and since we were coming from the SW and Lambert was landing planes from the East-we flew over the site at about 3000 ft altotude about 3 blocks south of the fire/smoke column0- I took color pix thru my left side window of the fire from the air- Upon landing I called home because I was then the DeputyFire Chief and Fire Mardhal of the Robertson Fire Protection District which abutted the first in Community Fire District on one corner-my wife said RFPD paid and volunteers had been there on scene 6 hours by time I called with all 3 of their first line apparatus-then 2 1000gpm Seagraves and one 750gpm Howe pumper. I drove over there in my turnout gear and spent the overnight in the fire command center on the records center grounds with Community Fire District Chief John Gertken and CFPD Fire Marshal Kennedy-all the ladder truck deluge lines and the 4 interior stair standpipe attacks were having a drenching effect only on the areas inside about 75 ft from the windows and 75 ft from the stairs-but that left an untouched body of fire right down the center of the files ie 150'widex 450'long-firfighters became heat exhausted in the stair attacks-24 hours later it was still burning out of control-it burned 2 more 24 hour days till it started to subside a bit-on the 4th day interior attack teams started making headway,but the heat on the underside of the 6"flat slab concrete roof for 96 hours had expanded the roof which was being restrained by the perimeter columns-suddenly the 4th morning with the sound like howitzers, released its pent up thermal expansion strasins by shearing off all 8 conrete support columns in the westernmost 2 bays-these columns were 14"x14" reinforced concrete-the shgear displacement moved the roof 5 inches weston the exteruior-the chief in charge then pulled all interior firefighting fearing a structural collapse. Interior wise after they finally reattacked they found cardboard file cabinets had all collapsed(whether from fire or water) there were no aisles and the fire burrowed under the wet top 2 collapsed drawers- It took another week of around the clock interior overhaul shifts to move all suggy top records and wet the glowing burning underneath paper. The fire was struck out 10 days after its start and 30+ firefighters were hospitalized fighting it- As a civil engineer and as a Fire Protection engineer-I served on the federal panel that investigated the fire and ultimately issued the report and reecommendations-which included provide retroactive fire suppresion protection in all existing record storage centers-provide automatic roof heat/smoke vents for al parts of stoage further than 75 ft from an exterior window vent, use only metal cabionet enclosures ior metal shelving-zone the smoke detection systems to know what pasrt of a floor detected the smoke-install non combustible interior firestop partitions every 100 ft of files to prevent burrowing fires propagating- Many half burned papers wafted up into the thermal column amnd over the next 3 weeks citizens returned the partial documents to document recovery preservation teams some records floated down 15 miles away- The National Fire Protection Assn (NFPA)Quincy,MA. "fire Journal magazine" carried a major article with pictures a year later. Marty Walsh PS no fire damage on lower floors and remarkably smal,l water damage-many records were saved on lower floors. --------------4048486887D3019FA04E2E44--