Stouffer's Inn Fire

[Remember585 815]

Lessons of the Stouffer's Inn fire, 25 years later

By RICHARD LIEBSON

rliebson@thejournalnews.com

THE JOURNAL NEWS

(Original publication: December 4, 2005)

HARRISON — Al Mignone was working at his family's deli in Purchase on a cold Dec. 4 morning when the call came in — a report of smoke at Stouffer's Inn.

Twenty-five years later Mignone, an assistant chief of the Purchase Fire Department at the time, still remembers the feeling he had as he drove toward the West Red Oak Lane hotel complex from the Hutchinson River Parkway.

"I could see thick smoke rolling over the hill bank, and I could smell wood burning," he recalled. "I knew right then that we had something really bad going on."

Considered the biggest disaster in Westchester County history, the fire in a conference building at Stouffer's claimed the lives of 26 businesspeople and injured 23. Fire officials say it also prompted changes in building and fire codes across the county, state and nation.

Although some 25 to 30 firefighters from Harrison and surrounding communities responded within minutes, a lack of fire sprinklers and highly flammable carpeting and wall coverings in the three-story conference building allowed the blaze to spread with stunning speed.

That's what Farideh Farhadi, who escaped with singed eyebrows and a mild case of smoke inhalation, remembered most.

"It happened so fast," the now 58-year-old Fort Lee, N.J., resident said. A former Nestle Co. employee who was attending a conference at Stouffer's, Farhadi said she arrived late and ended up sitting in the back row of the room, near the exit. She said her tardiness saved her life.

"The woman who was sitting right next to me died, and the man who was right behind me on the way out, seconds behind me, was burned very badly," Farhadi said. "I remember that he was wearing a polyester shirt that was melted onto his skin, and he was literally only a few steps behind me. ... All of the people who sat in the front of the room died."

Mignone said, "The people who survived got out in the first six or seven minutes. The rest were dead when we got there."

Only one hallway area of the Stouffer's conference building had fire sprinklers. Authorities say the loss of life there could have been avoided if what now seem like basic fire prevention measures had been required at the time.

"There was no statewide code then," said Steve Rocklind, associate architect with the state Department of State's codes enforcement division. "All we had was a model code that local communities could follow on a voluntary basis. The Stouffer's fire was a major catalyst in getting the state Legislature to finally enact a statewide code and later to require fire sprinklers in hotels, motels and other buildings where people gather."

Professor Glenn Corbett, coordinator of fire service programs at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, noted that the Stouffer's fire, coming less than two weeks after a blaze killed 85 guests and employees at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, was one of several major fires that prompted federal fire safety legislation covering hotels and motels to be enacted in the 1980s.

"It certainly has its place in fire history," Corbett said. "Unfortunately, improvements to fire and building codes at all levels usually come after tragedies."

That continues to be a sore spot with Mignone and Dan Berry, hired to set up a fire prevention bureau in Harrison in the aftermath of the blaze. Mignone recalled that, a month before the fire, local fire chiefs had gone to the Town Board to push for updates to Harrison's 1929 fire code.

"They had no idea what we were talking about, and they took no action on our recommendations until after the Stouffer's tragedy," he said. "There were sprinklers in a hallway at Stouffer's, but none in the conference rooms, because they weren't required. That's one reason the fire spread so quickly. ... After that a lot of communities around here started adopting fire codes."

Likewise, Berry said, New York had done little to establish statewide fire safety standards, despite a number of pre-Stouffer's warnings.

"Stouffer's wasn't the first bad fire we'd had," Berry said. "There was a fire at the Jewish Community Center in Yonkers (in 1965) that killed nine kids and three adults, and then in 1974 the Gulliver's fire (in a Port Chester nightclub) killed 24 people. But those fires didn't get the politicians excited. They didn't do anything until business executives from Arrow Electronics and Nestle died at Stouffer's."

Although the need for fire sprinklers and other safety measures had been discussed for years, Berry said, "The Stouffer's fire is what finally made the fire service get up on its hind legs and start howling at both the local and state level.

"I still feel that we should have gotten more done," Berry added. "I believe the state code should require sprinklers in every occupied building, period. A lot of local codes still don't require them, and the state law doesn't cover all occupied buildings."

Nevertheless, said John Viniello of Patterson, president of the National Fire Sprinkler Association, the blaze brought results.

"The Stouffer's fire resulted in significant legislation at the state and federal level and helped change the way the hotel and motel industry goes about fire protection," he said. "You can't build a hotel now without having it fully sprinklered, and most older hotels have gone back and installed sprinkler systems in their facilities. Stouffer's was one of the most horrific fires we've ever had, but if it's any consolation to the families of the victims, it did force changes that have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the 25 years since it happened."