NFPA Journal - September/October 2019 - 96

Looking Back

FIRE INCIDENTS AND
OTHER NOTABLE EVENTS
FROM SAFETY HISTORY

CLUB BLAZE

DETROIT'S DEADLY STUDY CLUB
FIRE OF 1929
By Matthew Foley
n September 20, 1929, a
popular nightclub in Detroit's
downtown district, The Study
Club, was in full swing. It was
Prohibition, and the club offered
visitors bootleg liquor and matches printed with
the slogan "Dance for Your Health." One of these
matches may have sparked a deadly fire.
At some point in the evening, a small fire
started in the club, igniting drapery near the
foot of a stairway that led to a second-floor
dance hall. As one patron was preparing to
leave, he remarked to the coatroom attendant,
"Did you know there is a fire back there, girlie?"
The attendant tried to extinguish the fire, but
the flames had spread to highly combustible
interior decorations. A member of the club's
kitchen staff began to alert patrons, but as the
fire grew and raced up the stairs toward the
dance hall, both employees fled the building.
A patrolling police officer spotted the fire
and ran to the nearest fire alarm box. When he
returned minutes later, it was a scene of chaos
and desperation. The fire had trapped scores of
people in the second-floor dance hall, and some
hung from windows, screaming for help as they
attempted to escape the growing flames. "The
place had [become] a madhouse," the officer
told the Detroit Free Press. When it was over,
22 people were dead. At least 45 were injured,
but many who escaped were unwilling to admit
their injuries and whereabouts to authorities,
according to a 1929 NFPA Quarterly article.
Alterations to the building and decorations in the nightclub were blamed for the
loss of life. Originally designed as a high-end

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THE NFPA LIBRARY AND ARCHIVE holds a rich collection of books, reports, and photographs that
document important moments in fire history. To provide better electronic access for researchers and
to preserve our unique archival holdings, work has begun to digitize the files of the Fire Record Department, the original NFPA department responsible for collecting and analyzing information and compiling
statistics about key fires and other events. The incidents featured in "Looking Back" are drawn from
this collection and will eventually be part of NFPA's online archive. For information, visit nfpa.org/library.

NFPA ARCHIVES

residential occupancy, the exits were not intended for large numbers of
patrons. A fire escape mandated by the building department lay unassembled outside the building during the evacuation. In search of a second exit,
dozens of occupants fled through a door at the rear of the dance hall and
found themselves wedged into a small dressing room, pictured above. Some
escaped the room by jumping to a brick alleyway, while others remained
trapped beneath unconscious patrons. Many people died in the space.
The Mayor of Detroit ordered the reinspection of all nightclubs to remove
any flammable decorations similar to those found in The Study Club. These
inspections followed a conference held to ensure collaboration between the
city's fire, police, recreation, and building departments. This meeting led to
a new process requiring Detroit's Fire Prevention Bureau to complete a separate inspection before the recreation department could issue any license
for nightclubs, cabarets, or similar premises, according to a Fire Engineering article published later that year.

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NFPA Journal - September/October 2019

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