The First Interstate Tower fire was a
high-rise fire that occurred on May 4, 1988, at the First Interstate Tower (now
Aon Center) in
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
, a 62-story, 860 foot (260 m) skyscraper, then the
tallest building in the city. The fire destroyed five floors of the building, injured 40 people, and caused the death of a maintenance worker, when the elevator he was riding opened onto the burning 12th floor.
Background
The fire was so severe because the building was not equipped with
fire sprinklers, which were not required for office towers at the time construction was completed in 1973. A sprinkler system was 90% installed at the time of the fire but was inoperative, awaiting the installation of water flow alarms.
Fire
The fire originated in the southwest quadrant of the twelfth floor, in an
open floor plan office area consisting of office furniture and computers. The U.S. Fire Administration report suspected the fire to be electrical in nature, but could not identify a specific cause or location.
A report from NIST was also unable to determine the exact source, but agreed it likely originated in electrical equipment, and likely one of the computer workstations.
The fire was first alerted around 10:22pm on May 4, 1988 when a smoke detector on the 12th floor of the building activated. However, due to ongoing work on the sprinkler system being installed that evening, security personal immediately silenced the alarm, believing the activation to be a false alarm.
Within six minutes, almost every smoke detector from floors 12 through 30 activated. The fire was not reported to emergency services until people outside the building called 911.
A maintenance worker, Alexander Handy, took a service elevator to the 12th floor in order to investigate the smoke detectors, however he ultimately died when the elevator opened onto the burning 12th floor. Around 50 people were believed to be occupying the building at the time of the fire, with 37 individuals injured including 3 firefighters.
Five individuals were rescued from the rooftop via helicopter.
A total of 270 firefighters from 55 different companies and 4 helicopters were all called in to fight the fire. One firefighter with the Los Angeles Fire Department told reporters; "I was not sure we could hold it" due to the intensely hot blaze fueled by the synthetic fabrics and furnishings in the building.
The fire, which resulted in $50 million in damages, was eventually contained at 2:19 AM.
Aftermath
According to the US Fire Administration report, unusually good application of
fireproofing
Fireproofing is rendering something (Building, structures, materials, etc.) resistant to fire, or incombustible; or material for use in making anything fire-proof. It is a passive fire protection measure. "Fireproof" or "fireproofing" can be u ...
on support members was a significant mitigating factor.
The fireproofing used to protect the steel was Monokote supplied by GCP Applied Technologies (formerly W. R. Grace). Repair work took four months. Because of the fire, Los Angeles building codes were changed, requiring all high-rises to be equipped with fire sprinklers. This modified a 1974 ordinance that only required new buildings to contain fire sprinkler systems.
Cultural references
The fire was dramatized in the 1991
telefilm, ''Fire: Trapped on the 37th Floor'', starring
Lee Majors
Lee Majors (born Harvey Lee Yeary; April 23, 1939) is an American actor. He portrayed the characters of Heath Barkley on the American television Western series '' The Big Valley'' (1965–1969), Colonel Steve Austin on the American television sc ...
,
Lisa Hartman Black and
Peter Scolari
Peter Thomas Scolari (September 12, 1955 – October 22, 2021) was an American actor. He was best known for his roles as Henry Desmond in the American Broadcasting Company, ABC sitcom ''Bosom Buddies'' (1980–1982) and Michael Harris on the C ...
.
See also
*
One Meridian Plaza
One Meridian Plaza, formerly known as the Fidelity Mutual Life Building, Three Girard Plaza and Three Mellon Bank Center, was a 38- story high-rise office building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The tower was designed by Vincent ...
- a 38-story building destroyed by fire 3 years later while a sprinkler system was being installed
*
Andraus Fire - a 1972 fire which burned through a 32-story building in
Sao Paulo, Brazil.
*
Joelma Fire
''Edifício Praça da Bandeira'', formerly known as the Joelma Building, is a 25-story building in downtown São Paulo, Brazil, completed in 1971, located at Avenida 9 de Julho, 225. On 1 February 1974, an air conditioning unit on the twelfth flo ...
- a 1974 fire which burned through a 25-story building in
Sao Paulo, Brazil.
*
2010 Shanghai fire – destroyed a 28-story high-rise
*
Lakanal House fire – a 2009 fire in a tower block in Camberwell, South London
*
2017 Plasco Building fire and collapse – in Tehran, Iran
*
Grenfell Tower fire
On 14 June 2017, a List of fires in high-rise buildings, high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of Public housing in the United Kingdom, flats in North Kensington, West London, England, at 00:54 British Summer Time, BST ...
- a 14 June 2017 destruction of a London 24-story high-rise which had no sprinkler system
*
PEPCON Disaster - a unrelated series of explosions, the largest being 1KT TNT equivalent, that happened in
Henderson, Nevada
Henderson is a city in Clark County, Nevada, United States, about southeast of downtown Las Vegas. It is the List of cities in Nevada, 2nd most populous city in Nevada, after Las Vegas, with 317,610 residents. The city is part of the Las Vegas V ...
the same day.
References
Further reading
*
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* {{cbignore, bot=medic
External links
Los Angeles Fire Department Historical Archive: First Interstate Bank Fire* Video
LAFD 1st Interstate Bank Fire Los Angeles Fire Department
Fires in California
1988 in Los Angeles
1988 fires in the United States
May 1988 in the United States
Commercial building fires in the United States
High-rise fires in the United States