THE BIG ONE

Photo: IAFF Local 333
On May 10, 1999, a general alarm engulfed the old Crowell-Collier printing plant at 200 West High Street on the edge of Springfield's downtown. Engine 5, Engine 4 and Battalion 1 were first to arrive at the blaze. READ MORE

AERIAL ATTACK - 2020

Photo: Springfield Fire Division
Masters steams in operation at Springfield, Ohio, industrial site on June 1, 2020.

FAREWELL TO STATION 3

Stars and Stripes lowered one last time

On duty in 1963 with old Engine 3, a 1947 American LaFrance 750 gpm engine. The rig was converted in the 1970s into a foam unit running out of Station No. 1 as Foam 11. 

Fire Station 3 dedication in 1959. The fire officer with his back to the may be Fire Chief Willard G. Compton.

Fire Station No. 3 at 1401 Selma Road opened in 1959. The previous station, built in the 1800s, was located at Selma Road and Homeview Avenue.

Photos: Springfield Fire Rescue Division

On Jan. 3, 2023, Springfield Fire Rescue Division Station No. 3 at 1401 Selma Road was decommissioned after more than 60 years of service. The city has embarked on a project to build four new fire stations to replace older facilities. The official out-of-service time was 1 p.m. Engine 3 made its final fire run to 2167 Scioto on Dec. 23. 2022. On the fire ground, the air temperature was minus 8 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill of minus 30 and the pump froze, Assistant Chief Matt Smith said. The station opened in 1959.

KING BUILDING - 1956

 

Photos: Wikipedia

Night of raging flames (top) and morning after (below)

On Sept. 15, 1956, a roaring fire engulfed the King Building at 21 South Fountain Ave. in Springfield, Ohio. The King Building was located between the State Theater and the Arcue Building in the heart of downtown. Fire division ladder pipes and master streams propelled cascades of water on the flames breaching the roof and arched-facade. The King Building was owned by the family of Robert Quigley King, who served as Springfield's fire chief from 1879 until 1891.  

RESCUE 1

In 2020, the Springfield Fire Rescue Division placed new Rescue 1 in service - with a ceremonial shove - and retired old Rescue 1, which served the city for 22 years. Rescue 1 is based at Fire Station No. 1 on North Fountain Avenue. 

WOODFORD DRIVE - 2021

Photos: Springfield Fire Rescue Division

Incident report from Springfield Fire Rescue Division Facebook page: "Just after noon on 8/8/21, C Unit was dispatched to 2810 Woodford on a report of a house fire. Responding companies were E5, E7, T4, R1, M4, and Battalion 1. First due companies found heavy fire venting out both the front and back of the house. A transitional attack was started in an attempt slow the fire's progress, but when companies tried to make entry for an interior attack, they found the building was already collapsing inside. All personnel were withdrawn and a defensive strategy was used, with multiple hand lines and the ladder pipe from T4."

FIRST MOTORIZED RIG

Post card of Springfield's first motorized fire engine. The firefighter seated closest to the camera appears to be Fire Chief Samuel Hunter.

PUPPY RESCUE - 1973

 

Firefighters Mike Rucker, Jim Powell. Glenn Caudill, Capt. Bill Murphy (left to right) and Barney at old Fire Station No. 9 in Springfield, Ohio in July 1973

On July 19, 1973, Barney, a curious beagle puppy, wedged himself in an old milk can. Members of the Springfield Fire Division carefully freed him - proving man is a dog's best friend.

The firefighters at old Fire Station No. 9 - at 17 West State Street - first punched a hole in the can so the puppy could get some fresh air. Then tried cooking oil to slide his head. Finally, they went with a metal cutter.

Firefighters Mike Rucker, Jim Powell. Glenn Caudill and Capt. Bill Murphy performed the tender extrication.

These photos from the Springfield News & Sun were transmitted to newspapers across the U.S. by the Associated Press. They were shared with the Springfield Fire Journal by retired Lt. Dave Aills of Rescue Company 1.

LARCH STREET - 2020

Photos: Springfield Fire Rescue Division

Incident report from Springfield Fire Rescue Division Facebook page:

"Just before 0100 on 6/11/2020, B unit was dispatched to 2100 Larch St. on a report of a fire in this building, which was originally built as the Hoppes Manufacturing Co. over 120 years ago. The building now housed a pallet manufacturing factory. First arriving companies found heavy fire already venting through the roof and before it was over, the fire went to a third alarm. Responding companies were E3, E6, E7, T4, T8, R1, M4, M6, Battalion 1, Chief 1, Chief 2, Chief 3, Marshal 1, and Box 27 Associates. The factory building itself was heavily damaged, with only a small part being saved. Larch St is very narrow, and directly across the street is an older residential neighborhood. Many of the houses along Larch suffered radiant heat damage, but quick actions by R1 and T8 on the D side of the factory provided exposure protection hose lines to these homes, and kept them from igniting as well."

SIGNAL 3

 

Photo: Springfield Fire Division 

"Signal 3" was the Springfield Fire Division radio call for a working fire. Judging by the equipment on the scene this could have been a second alarm assignment. Date and address unknown. Probably late 1950s.

HOUSE FIRE -1951

Photo: Springfield Fire Division

Aftermath of April 15, 1951 house fire at 1304-1308 S. Yellow Springs Street in Springfield, identified as the Burke residence. We have no idea what the fireman is holding opposite of his pail. It certainly looks scorched.

COMMAND STAFF - 1905

Photo: Springfield Fire Division

This is the Springfield Fire Division's command staff in 1905 with Fire Chief Samuel Hunter at center. The top and bottom roses are the captains of the city's fire stations - No.1 to No. 8. On the right of Hunter is the superintendent of the fire alarm telegraph system. On Hunter's left is the superintendent of machinery.

AIRLINER CRASH - 1931

The Brighton section of Harmony Township, Clark County, was the scene of an airliner crash on New Year's Eve 1931.

Springfield, O., Jan. 1 -- (AP) -- The death toll of the wreck of a Cleveland-Cincinnati passenger plane rose to four today with the death of W. D. WIEBACK, of Cincinnati, a salesman.

Three men were dead when they were pulled from the smashed ship, near here last night. The pilot remains critically injured.

The cause of the fall was investigated by Capt. Frank McKee, state director of aeronautics, who inspected the wreckage today.

The plane, a single motored craft, enroute from Cleveland to Louisville, was flying low when it went into a barrel roll, according to LEWIS L. BOWEN, of Louisville, the pilot and one of the injured. It plunged 300 feet to bury itself three feet in a muddy field.

The other dead:

A. L. WENNER of Cincinnati, an engineer.

LOUIS E. STONE, 24, of Cincinnati, personnel director of the Embry-Riddle division of the American Airways.

A. C. MAYER, JR., 38, of Louisville, merchandising manager of the General Electric Co. refrigerator division with headquarters at Cleveland.

The plane left Port Columbus at 6:35 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) and was due in Dayton at 7:25. It was reported overdue at Cincinnati at 8 p.m.

Residents of Brighton, near where the crash occurred, reported seeing the craft about 7:30 p.m. apparently in trouble.

Shortly afterward a crash was heard and residents began searching. Two boys located the wreckage nearly two hours later. The three dead apparently had been killed instantly.

The pilot said he had lost control of the plane while trying to regain altitude. He was slightly off his course and was flying low.

TAYLOR MURDER - 1966

On Oct. 29, 1966, the Springfield Fire Division emergency squad responded to 415 Ludlow Avenue for a brutal attack on a mother and her baby. Anita Taylor, 20, died. Her child survived.

Today, it's still a cold case.

The police division report on the slaying said: "The Fire Div. Emergency Squad, consisting of Lt. Olds and Fireman Shook, arrived at the scene and transported the complainant and baby to Community Hospital, where the complainant was pronounced D.O.A. by Dr. Fifer."

A family website is seeking clues at taylorcase.com/

O.S. KELLY PLANT - 1916

On Nov. 13, 1916, flames fanned by wind gusts gutted the  O. S. Kelly Piano Plate Company in Springfield.

The fire started in gas ovens used to manufacture of piano plates and had made significant headway by the time it was discovered by a police officer on patrol.

 "Chief Samuel F. Hunter responded and found the two top floors in flames on the west and gaining eastward, fanned by a high wind," Fire Engineering reported. "The chief was handicapped by a deep creek running along the south side of the building, the creek being forty feet wide.

"He had forty men at the fire and they worked skillfully under his direction and checked the blaze," the magazine said.

Springfield firefighters responded with  an Ahrens motor combination pumper, two American-La France chemical engines, a Seagrave aerial ladder, a Webb pumping engine and four Kelly hose and chemical engines. 

The plant was located at Limestone Avenue and Warder Street.

DAYTON VETERANS - 1942

Image: Department of Veterans Affairs

On May 21, 1942, a two-alarm fire hit the Dayton veterans home, which was undergoing renovations.

XENIA LODD - 1908

On Feb. 3, 1908, two Xenia firefighters died when a brick wall collapsed at a fire at the H. H. Kavey & Co. wholesale grocery store.

Martin Ulery and Joseph Fletcher were manning a hose line at the rear of the building when the wall gave way, according to Fire Engineering magazine. Another firefighter was thrown to the ground by the force of the collapse and injured.

"The flames made their way upward through the elevator-shaft, and before they burst through the roof had been burning fiercely for some time," the magazine said. "The firemen were hindered in their operations by the intense cold and by help given to the flames by the gas which escaped from the broken and melted lines."

Firefighters directed seven streams at the blaze, all at the constant pressure of 85 pounds, which was considered reliable in the early 1900s.

The likely cause was an overheated pipe or spontaneous combustion in the rear of the building.

Decades later, members of the Ohio National Guard lost their lives at the same site when a killer tornado struck Xenia on April 3, 1974, according to the Xenia Fire Division.

HOME INSPECTIONS - 1960

The Springfield Fire Division introduced a home fire safety program in May 1960 and within the first four weeks firefighters completed more than 6,000 inspections. In the photo, pumper crews muster on the ramp at fire headquarters. It is likely truck companies remained at their stations to provide fire cover. Civic organizations provided funds for the program, brainchild of Fire Chief Willard G. Compton.  

CLARK COUNTY COURTHOUSE - 1918

Roaring flames swept the old Clark County Courthouse on March 12, 1918, toppling the bell tower and gutting the interior.

The grand jury room, the common pleas court chamber and the court of appeals chamber were ruined.

Many of the law library's 9,000 volumes were lost.

Fire Chief Samuel Hunter struck a second alarm upon arrival, bringing his entire force to the scene at about 1 a.m.

``Hundreds of feet into the air the flames shot as they encircled the high tower,'' The Sun newspaper said. ``Several lines of hose were used to throw water on the southwest corner in which are kept all the court records of the county ... Two lines of hose were carried to the top of the sheriff's residence and from there water was played on the building.''

Winds carried sparks ``as far down as Spring Street where a dwelling caught fire,'' according to The Sun.

Sheriff James Welch ordered the transfer of inmates from the County Jail to the City Prison as a precaution.

The blaze apparently started near a lavatory on the second floor of the courthouse, which was built in 1878.

GREEN VERSUS RED

Photo: Youngstown Fire

Photo: Big Mack Trucks

"It's not easy being green," Kermit the Frog once said.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Springfield, Dayton and other American cities fielded safety lime and safety yellow fire apparatus to improve visibility and cut down on traffic accidents.

Scientists had determined human eyes are "most sensitive to greenish-yellow colors under dim conditions, making lime shades easiest to see in low lighting," according to the American Psychological Association.

However, later scientific studies determined "recognizing the vehicle was more important than paint color" the APA said. "If people in a particular community don't associate the color lime with fire trucks, then yellow-green vehicles may not actually be as conspicuous."

The trend has since shifted back to red, just like Kermit the Frog's Sesame Street neighbor - Elmo.

MAST FOOS - 1925

Photo: Fidelity Sales Co. via Clark County Historical Society

Insurance agents distributed local fire photos like this one to drum up business. It was pretty convincing advertising.

On Dec. 17, 1925, fire broke out at the Mast Foos plant in Springfield, Ohio, and the city's aging steamer was put back to work supplementing motorized fire apparatus.  Notice that part of a wall collapsed.

Mast Foos, founded in 1884, produced Iron Turbine Wind Engines, Buckeye Force Pumps and Buckeye Lawn Mowers.

COLLINWOOD - 1908

On March 4, 1908, fire killed 172 children and two teachers at Lakeview Elementary School in the village of Collinwood, Ohio, near Cleveland.

"The fire began shortly after 9 a.m when an overheated steam pipe came in contact with wooden joists under the front stairs, and only 194 of the 366 students enrolled escaped the blaze," according to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.

"The others were trapped inside the rear first-floor exit, and by the time volunteer firemen arrived, nothing could be done to save them," the encyclopedia said.

___

Special to The New York Times.

Cleveland, Ohio, March 4 - In a fire that may have been incendiary between 160 and 170 children lost their lives this morning when Lake View School, in the suburb of Collinwood, burned.

Penned in narrow hallways and jammed up against doors that only opened inward, the pupils were killed by fire and smoke and crushed under the grinding heels of their panic-stricken playmates. All of the victims were between the ages of 6 and 14 years. There were about 310 children in the school.

Two teachers, in vain efforts to save the little ones perished. To-night 165 bodies are in the morgue at Collinwood, of which more than 100 have been identified and 57 are still unidentified. Thirteen children are still unaccounted for, and all the hospitals and houses for two miles around contained children, some mortally and many less seriously injured.

Fire's Origin a Mystery.

What caused the fire is a mystery. There are hints that it was incendiary. There were no wires to cross and ignite the woodwork. There was no rubbish where the flames began, to ignite from spontaneous combustion. All that now seems to be known is that three little girls coming from the basement saw smoke. Before the janitor sounded the fire alarm a mass of flames was sweeping up the stairway from the basement. Before the children from the upper floors could reach the ground egress was cut off and they perished. It was all over almost before the frantic mothers who gathered realized that their children were lost.

With the call for fire engines calls for ambulances were sent in. Every ambulance from the eastern end of Cleveland was pressed into service. Wagons were used to carry off the dead.

Rescuers were present by the hundreds, but they could not save the life of one child, so dense was the jam at the foot of the stairways.

The Lake View School was a three-story structure. Under the stairway in the front of the building was the furnace. Owing to the mild weather there was less fire than usual, and it is certain that the fire did not start there. On the first floor four rooms were in use when the fire started, and the children of this floor escaped with few exceptions. They believed the ringing of the fire gong was the usual fire drill signal and marched out in order. The pupils on the second and third floors became panic-stricken and rushed to death.

Rear Door Was Locked.

The number of pupils was more than normally large, and the smaller children had been placed in the upper part of the building. There was only one fire escape, and that was in the rear of the building. There were two stairways, one leading to a door in front and the other to a door in the rear. Both of these doors opened inward, and it is said that the rear door was locked as well.

When the flames were discovered the teachers, who throughout seem to have acted with courage and self-possession, and to have struggled heroically for the safety of their pupils, marshaled the little ones into columns for the "fire drill," which they had often practiced.

Unfortunately the line of march in this exercise had always led to the front door, and the children had not been trained to seek any other exit. The fire to-day came from directly under this part of the building.

When the children reached the foot of the stairs they found the flames close upon them, and so swift a rush was made for the door that in an instant a tightly packed mass of children was piled up against it. From that second none of those who were upon any portion of the first flight of stairs had a chance for their lives. The children at the foot of the stairs attempted to fight their way back to the floor above, while those who were coming down shoved them mercilessly back into the flames below.

In an instant there was a frightful panic, with 200 of the pupils fighting for their lives. Most of those who were killed died here. The greater part of those who escaped managed to turn back and reach the fire escape and the windows in the rear.

What happened at the foot of that first flight of stairs will never be known, for all of those who were caught in the full fury of the panic were killed. After the flames had died away, however, a huge heap of little bodies, burned by the fire and trampled into things of horror, told the tale.

As soon as the alarm was given MRS. KELLEY ran from her home, which is not far from the schoolhouse, to the burning building. The front portion of the structure was a mass of flames, and, frenzied by the screams of the fighting and dying children which reached her from the death trap at the foot of the first flight of stairs and behind that closed door, MRS. KELLEY ran to the rear, hoping to effect an entrance there and save her children.

She was joined by a man whose name is not known, and the two of them tugged and pulled frantically at the door. They were unable to move it in the slightest, and there was nothing at hand by which they could hope to break it down. In utter despair of saving any of the children, they turned their attention to the windows, and by smashing some of these they managed to save a few of the pupils.

"They could have saved many more," said MR. KELLEY to-night, "if the door had not been locked. Nobody knows how many of the children might have made their way out before my wife reached there if the door had not been locked. If half a dozen men had been there when my wife and her companion arrived at the schoolhouse, perhaps they might have broken down the door, but the two could do nothing, and the flames spread so rapidly that it was all over in a few minutes."

Parents Fight with Firemen.

The suburb of Collingwood contains about 8,000 people, and within a half hour after the outbreak of the fire nearly every one of them was gathered around the blazing ruins of the school house, hundreds of parents fighting frantically with the police and firemen who were busily engaged in saving the lives of the children caught in the burning building and doing their best to extinguish the fire.

The police were utterly unable through lack of numbers to keep away the crowd that pressed upon them, and the situation soon became so serious that a number of the more cool-headed men in the throng took it upon themselves to aid in fighting back the crowd, while others worked to help the firemen and the police.

Among the latter were WALLACE UPTON, who reached the building shortly after the front door had caved in, and disclosed to the horror-stricken crowd the awful scenes that had occurred there. Just in front of UPTON'S eyes was his own ten-year-old daughter, helpless in the crush, badly burned, and trampled upon, but still alive. The fire was close upon her, and if she could not be saved at once she could not be saved at all.

UPTON sprang to help her, and with all his strength sought to tear her from the weight that was pressing her down and from the flames which were creeping close. Although he worked with a desperation of despair, his strength was unequal to the task. He fought until his clothing was partly burned from him and the skin of his face and hands was scorched black.

Other men attempted to induce him to move, but he refused until he saw that his girl was dead, and that he could not save her life by sacrificing his own. He then withdrew from the schoolhouse, and, although so seriously injured that he may die, lingered about the place for several hours, refusing to go to a hospital or to seek medical attention.

GREAT FIRE OF 1840

In 1840, Springfield suffered an economic calamity all too common in early urban America - a Great Fire.

According to Beers' 1881 ``History of Clark County: ''

Hitherts the town had been fortunately preserved from fire. The loss of an occasional building of but little value was the most serious damage. But, on the evening of February 21, 1840, an extensive conflagration occurred, which at one time threatened to sweep the entire place.

It consumed the entire business block from Maddox Fisher's block on Main street to the alley west of Limestone street, and also the building now known as the St. James Hotel.

The buildings destroyed had been but recently erected, and were nearly all store-rooms. The enterprising proprietors were not prostrated by their sudden loss, but immediately began to replace the sites with durable structures of modern pattern, which were a credit to the town.

Nearly all the printing materials of the Pioneer office were destroyed by this fire, which delayed the publication of the page four weeks.

Another account in the 1852 booklet ``Sketches of Springfield'' said:

Springfield was visited with a heavy conflagration, which destroyed two large brick buildings, then known as `Linn' and `Murray's' Rows.

These buildings had been recently built, and were principally occupied as store rooms. These enterprising gentlemen, (Messrs. Linn and Murray) soon replaced these sites by fine Rows which now are an ornament to this city. This fire originated in a livery stable back of Linn's building.

RUNS & WORKERS - PART 8

Photo: WDTN

Neighbors raised a ladder to help two people escape a fire on East Northern Avenue in Springfield on Feb. 28, 2016. They were "we’re very fortunate under the circumstances," Battalion Chief Pat Casey told WDTN. Resident Michael Bertram said: “If it wasn’t for the neighbors over here, we would have been dead."

Fatal accident and fire on I-70, Clark County, Oct. 4, 2018. One dead.

WHIO SKY7 view of fatal house fire, Dover Road, Springfield, Aug. 30, 2018. One dead.

Fatal house fire, Wiley Avenue, Springfield, Aug. 12, 2018. Two dead. 

Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken, Springfield, May 24, 2018

COLUMBUS DISASTER - 1936

Photos courtesy of the estate of Henry Frank Moler, an engineer employed by the City of Columbus engineer's office

Five members of the Columbus Fire Division died Feb. 19, 1936 when a wall collapsed at a fire at the Odd Fellows Temple - one of the largest losses of firefighters in Ohio history. 

They were:

• Herbert Harrington, firefighter, Squad 1
• Otto Ignatze, captain, Pump 3
• Harry McFadden, firefighter, Truck 1
• Oliver Metzger, firefighter, Squad 1
• Robert Welsh, captain, Squad 1

The fire apparently started at the furnace.

The building was located on the corner of High and Rich streets.
On Feb. 19, 2012, the Columbus Dispatch published the following recollection:

Five Columbus firefighters died, and seven others were injured on Feb. 19, 1936, when the rear wall of a four-story Downtown lodge hall collapsed during an early morning fire.

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows hall, which stood where Columbus Commons now is on S. High Street, was one of the oldest office buildings in the city, having been built in 1868. 

Decayed mortar between the bricks of the building’s west wall was blamed for the tragedy.

At least eight firefighters were on a fire escape when the wall gave way, plunging some to their deaths and injuring others.

Firefighter Earl Ruhl said he was on the third floor when “Lt. McFadden and others in his company told me to go down and warm up. I went down the fire escape and a ladder, and before I knew what happened, I heard timbers crashing and felt bricks hitting my back.”

Lt. Harry McFadden, 36, had been injured fighting the fire but ignored advice to go to a hospital.

“He returned to the blaze after preliminary treatment just in time to be crushed under the wall,” The Dispatch reported.

McFadden was killed.

Firefighters used torches to rescue survivors from a tangle of steel beams, bricks and debris.

The front of the building was coated in a 6-inch sheet of ice, as the water from firefighters’ hoses froze in frigid weather.