Summary

Hospital Fire, Petersburg, Virginia
5 People Killed
Saturday, December 31, 1994

NFPA Report by Ed Comeau

Summary

At approximately 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, December 31, 1994, a fire occurred in a 468-bed hospital in Petersburg, Virginia. The fire, which was caused by smoking materials, resulted in the deaths of five patients.

The hospital, a full-care facility, was housed in a high-rise building of fire-resistive construction. The building had been equipped with many of the fire protection features currently required by fire safety codes, and hospital staff had been trained to respond to fire emergencies.

The fire began in a patient's room, apparently as the result of the improper use of smoking materials, which ignited bedding, including an "air floatation" mattress with foam plastic padding. The fire intensified briefly when fed by oxygen released from the hospital's piped oxygen distribution system.

Smoke spread into the corridor and other patient rooms because the door to the room of fire origin was not closed. Smoke also spread into a non combustible concealed space above the ceilings of the patient rooms on the same side of the corridor as the fire room. The smoke was able to enter these concealed spaces because the walls between these rooms were not continuous from the floor to the underside of the floor above. The smoke seeped from the concealed space into the patient rooms below, increasing the amount of smoke that accumulated in them.

The patient in the room of fire origin was killed, and the contents of the room were destroyed. Three other patients died in the area in which the fire occurred, as did one patient in an adjacent area. Even though this last patient was in a remote area, the death was attributed to the fire.

The NFPA investigation and analysis of findings revealed that the following factors contributed to the loss:

• Delayed fire discovery.
• Delayed fire alarm transmission to the fire department because the connection was taken out of service.
• The severity of the fire when it was discovered.
• The rapid fire growth and the rapid development of untenable conditions.
• The open door between the room of fire origin and the corridor.
• Walls between individual rooms that were not continuous from slab to slab.
• Lack of sprinkler system in the room of origin or in the corridor.