This month in fire history – March 2025

While we usually look back on important fires every month, we look at a few historical moments in the time this month that contributed to designing the US fire brigade as we know it. We also look back on two fatal fires, which were exactly 79 years away from that day and the tragic bridges collapsed in Baltimore until last year.

March 1, 1911 – The Weeks Act

On March 1, 1911, President William Howard Taffel signed the Weeks Act into the law. The law nationalized the US forest service, since neither federal nor state governments had essential forest areas east of the Mississippi River before the law. The Forest History Society quoted a historian with the words: “Not a single law was more important when returning the forests to the east of the United States than the Weeks Act.

The Weeks -act followed the fatal fire season of 1910 in the western United States. According to Wikipedia, the Fire Tort in Idaho was particularly rough, where 85 people, including 72 firefighters, were killed in fires and more than 3 million acres of land and about 8 billion board wood were destroyed by fires this year.

According to Wildfire today, the Week's Act not only paved the way for the national forest system, but also the nation's first interagency effort.

A search on the AI ​​website led to this list of the possibilities of how the Weeks -Act affected the fire brigade:

1. It founded the nation's first interagency fire brigade effort.
2. The law made the corresponding federal financing available for the expenditure of the state forest fire, so that the state forestry departments can improve their fire control organizations.
3. It approved $ 150,000 for the fight against forest fires and other emergencies with an additional 1 million US dollars for extraordinary fire emergencies.
4. Legislation created a basis for cooperative agreements between the forest service and the state and private forests for fire protection and oppression.
5. By 1919, 23 countries had completed cooperation agreements with the forest service for fire control.
6. The law led to the construction of fire towers and paths and the setting of “forest guards” for $ 50 per month.
7. It banned some fire management practices from the American indigenous people who had long -term consequences for forest health.

March 17, 1631, Boston, MA – Legislation to prevent companies

According to the official website of the Boston Fire Historical Society, the first fire in Boston occurred on March 16, 1631, when the wooden chimney of Thomas Sharp caught fire and burned the house to the ground.

In the history of the fire and fire regulations on www.leg.state.nv.us, the Boston Governor John Winthrop passed the legislation the next day, which had banned the construction of wood chorns and the use of straw roofs on houses. These regulations were carried out in order to reduce fire risks in the colonial settlement, since it was found that wooden chimneys and roofs of straw caused more frequent and dangerous fires across the community.

This legislation is considered the first American building code and marked the beginning of the formal fire protection regulations in the later United States.

March 19, 1896, New York – profits from NFPA

In “The History of the National Fire Protection Association”, Angelo Destoni wrote that the first patents for fire -proof systems were granted in the 1870s. More advanced designs have been created in the next ten years. The problem was that installer could not keep up with all new designs and had problems with the installation.

“They were widespread with the increasing popularity of the technology, but they were installed inconsistently, and it quickly became the nightmare of a plumber,” wrote Casey Grant, former managing director of the Fire Protection Research Foundation, in an article with the 100th anniversary of NFPA. “Something had to be done.”

In fact, Veroni reports that nine different standards of the pipeline size of fire sprinkler pipelines were used within a radius of 100 miles from Boston. He adds that a group of insurance and ownership protection administrations later met to discuss how the situation is managed.

“After such a meeting in March 1896” Desoni writes “they published” the “Report of the Committee for Automatic Sprinkler Protection”, which would eventually become NFPA 13, standard for installing sprinkler systems. “

Later this year, on November 6, 1896, the group officially became the National Fire Protection Association.

March 25, 1911, New York City – Triangle -shirthaist Building Fire Fire

On March 25, 1911, a thrown away cigarette in Triangle Shirtwaist Co. was responsible for one of the worst tragedies that New York City had ever seen. As Paul Hashagen reported in his article “Learning from the tragedy”: “It took about 10 minutes for the 4:45 lock bell to subside, as a carelessly thrown away match or a cigarette lit a huge bunch of scrap under a cutting table on the eighth floor. The table itself, also high with flammable fabric, soon burned quickly. Sewing patterns of the tissue paper, which are hung over the tables over the tables, break open in flames and distributed the fire across the room. “

When firefighters arrived, they found that their ladders were too short to reach the upper floors. The overloaded fire air compensation soon collapsed. Many workers who could not escape the inferno jumped to death. A total of 146 workers lost their lives that day.

As Daniel Byrne reported in his article “After 100 years: teachings from the Triangle Shirtwaist”, “as before, there was great progress after this fire. Not only major reforms of labor law and the further development of women's voting law, but the seeds of the life safety code were planted. And for the first time in building history, we not only looked at the construction of the building in relation to fire security, but now what we were in these buildings. Codes written in blood went into the book. “

March 25, 1990, Bronx, NY – Happy Land Social Club Feuer

Exactly 79 years later, after the Triangle shirthaist Fire, another tragedy in New York met, in contrast to the accidental cause of the shirtwaist fire, the editor-in-chief of Firehouse, Harvey Eisner, reported that the Happy Land Social Club Blazze was pure arson.

In his article in May 1990, Eisner reported that the “one-alarm fire apparently was determined by an angry patron that poured petrol into the entrance. The lightning fire found the majority of the victims caught in the Mezzanin on the second floor, which was used as a dance floor. “

March 26, 2024, Baltimore, MD – Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse

Six construction workers died after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed on March 26, 2024. As in the note of a publisher in the new history of Firehouse.com, “Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapses after the ship strike; Six missed, ”it made the crew of the ship that hit the bridge, a” Mayday “signal that prevented more traffic from getting to the bridge. Maryland Governor Wes Moore said that life saved. James Wallace, fire chief of Baltimore, said one person was transported to shock trauma at the beginning of the incident, while another refused to be transported. In the dark, helicopter crews found that there were vehicles under water. The temperature of the Patapsco river was about 44 degrees.

Main incidents this month in fire brigade history

March 10, 1941, Brockton, MA – The fire roof of the Beach Theater kills 13 firefighters

March 22, 2018, York, PA – Piano Warehouse Collapse kills two firefighters

March 24, 2018, Kanawha County, WV – apparatus crash kills two volunteer firefighters