Iroquois Theater Fire, Chicago, IL (1901)

Iroquois Theater Fire, Chicago, IL (1901)

The Iroquois Theatre Fire occurred during a musical matinee in Chicago, Illinois, in 1903. The play’s scenery consisted of many canvas backdrops decorated in highly flammable oil paints, and when a hot stage light ignited a velvet curtain the backdrops soon went up in flames. This eventually caused the deaths of 602 people, making this the most fatal single-building fire in U.S. history. Although the lighting and scenery fire hazards started the fire, the high number of fatalities resulted from the theatre’s failure to take proper fire safety precautions. There were no automatic fire sprinklers for the stage, and the stage’s fire curtain did not close properly to contain the fire. In addition, there was no emergency lighting, the stage’s smoke and heat vents were not functional, and many exit doors were either locked or did not swing in the direction of travel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois_Theatre_fire