Our Lady of The Angels School Fire

Our Lady of The Angels School Fire

Introduction

On December 1958, “Our Lady of the Angels” catholic school in Chicago was trapped in a horrific fire. The school is an educational home that accommodates around 1600 students. The school fire was a dreadful event that took the life of 92 children and 3 nuns, along with the heavy score of injured. This event played huge role in the changes of fire safety codes and the structure in which it was designed.

Discussion Analysis

The Our Lady of the Angels School is a Roman Catholic institution that was built for kindergarten to 8th grade. It is essential to notice the school was complying the entire codes of fire, but the codes it self was lacking in its structure. Every classroom of the school contain glass casement over the door that can easily give access to fire and smoke for entering in the rooms once the glass breaks. The fire codes were not suitable at all because the school did not have any automatic fire alarm, no smoke detectors, no alarm connection to city's fire detectors, and even no sprinkle system (McBride, 1979). Inside the school, the stairs, floors, walls, and doors were made up of combustible wooden and even the floor was waxed from flammable petroleum. The fire broke out in the basement of the school and spread to the entire building. When it started in the basement, people did not notice and later on finally discovered by 3 girls from eight standards. By that time, it was not possible enough to safely come out from the building because the entire corridors were filled from grave smoke. The class teacher decided to keep the children in the classroom and hoped that they will be soon rescued from fire department.

The windows were broken due to the heavy smoke pressure, and because of this, the fire got more strength from the outside air. Ultimately, the fire was noticed by school janitor, and she quickly ran and spread the word to fire department. Moreover, he also ran back to school for helping teachers and students, but the fire did not allow any one to escape from the 2nd floor. The school did not contain any fire door for stopping the heavy flames and at the first floor, the nuns and children soon sensed to be trapped in the spreading fire (Jajkowski, 1958). The worst part of the event happened when the fire department went on the wrong part of the school and thought that the fire was broken into the rectory of school. It was not entirely their mistake because they were informed late and even not properly told about the location of the fire.

The nuns asked the children to pray for some divine intrusion, but the flames were near to the classrooms and the intense heat panicked children. The fire fighters reached near to the proper destination and tried to take out children and nuns from the ...