NFPA Journal - November/December 2020 - 80
HOSPITAL
BLAZE
THE 1923 DUNNING HOSPITAL FIRE
DUNNING, ILLINOIS
By Caitlin Walker
n December 26, 1923, several
hundred patients were having
dinner in the tuberculosis pavilion
of the Illinois State Hospital for
the Insane in Dunning, Illinois.
The patients lived in five pavillion annexes that
were connected to each other and to the dining
hall via passageways. At 5:40 p.m., a patient in
Annex 5 saw smoke and flames coming from a
supply closet and began yelling "Fire!" A nurse
in the dining hall notified the operator at the
administration building, who alerted hospital
officials. The hospital alarm was sounded, the city
fire department was notified, and physicians and
O
FIRE INCIDENTS AND
OTHER NOTABLE EVENTS
FROM SAFETY HISTORY
nurses went to aid the attendants and the patients.
Fire spread quickly through
the wooden buildings. A Fire
and Water Engineering article described how the guards
and nurses struggled to control the panicked patients as
they led them through the
rain to another building. In
the chaos, several patients
eluded the guards and
escaped, but were brought
back in the following days.
The hospital's private
fire brigade was spraying
streams of water onto the
burning buildings when the
city fire department arrived.
The station was only a few
miles away, but the firefighters had been delayed as a result of mud-covered roads. Police also responded to the alarm; officers assisted the
guards escorting patients to safety, and also rescued three patients who
had locked themselves in a lavatory in the burning dining hall.
The fire department's efforts and a shift in the wind saved two annexes,
but three buildings were destroyed and 18 people lost their lives. Among
the dead were 15 patients, a caretaker, his wife, and their son. Many of
the patients perished because they returned to the building to save their
belongings. According to the Chicago Tribune, the caretaker and his
family lived in Annex 5. When the fire started, he and his wife escorted
several blind patients out of the building but returned to retrieve their
son and grab their belongings.
It was not the first time the hospital had experienced a fire. A local
newspaper observed that "the overcrowded frame structure known as
the 'death house' [had] been recognized as an ever-present danger for the
last eleven years, and the asylum had been saved from destruction from
flames largely by luck in eight blazes since 1910."
Investigators could not pinpoint the exact cause of the fire, but speculation focused on defective wiring or the spontaneous ignition of mops
covered in paraffin wax that had been stored in a closet.
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.
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Looking Back
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NFPA Journal - November/December 2020
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Contents
NFPA Journal - November/December 2020 - Cover1
NFPA Journal - November/December 2020 - Cover2
NFPA Journal - November/December 2020 - 1
NFPA Journal - November/December 2020 - 2
NFPA Journal - November/December 2020 - 3
NFPA Journal - November/December 2020 - Contents
NFPA Journal - November/December 2020 - 5
NFPA Journal - November/December 2020 - 6
NFPA Journal - November/December 2020 - 7
NFPA Journal - November/December 2020 - 8
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