Shortly before the end of classes on Dec. 1, 1958, a fire broke out at the Our Lady of Angels elementary school in Chicago. The fire left 95 dead and many others seriously injured. This fire, which occurred 50 years ago, is still one of the deadliest school fires in the history of the United States. As a result of this fire, many building requirements were enhanced to make schools safer from fire. Some of these requirements include the installation of fire alarm and automatic fire suppression systems and increasing the frequency of exit drills.

“The Our Lady of Angels Fire reminds us of the threat that is posed by fire and the importance of designing buildings that that keep people safe from fire,” said Chris Jelenewicz, engineering program manager with the Society of Fire Protection Engineers. “The fact of the matter, however, is that today schools are much better protected. This is in large part due to the fire-safety strategies and systems designed by fire protection engineers that make our world safer from fire.”

Approximately 1,600 children were in the two-story, brick and wood joist building. The fire started in the basement at the bottom of one of the building’s interior stairways. The open stairway did not have fire-rated doors at the top of the stair. As a result, the fire spread quickly up the stair into the second floor corridors. The stairway effectively became a chimney after the fire started, a conduit for smoke and gases to spread through the second floor hallways; these hallways would have been the only safe escape route.

The Chicago Fire Department rescued many children with ground ladders or by catching those who jumped out the windows. Despite these efforts, many of the children died in their classrooms and others were forced to jump out windows to their deaths.

The school was not equipped with a sprinkler system or an automatic fire alarm/detection system, meaning a delay in notification of both the building occupants and the fire department.

“Poor fire protection design was a major contributing factor to the significant number of deaths and injuries,” says Jelenewicz. “Additionally, many lives were lost because the fire burned out of control for a considerable amount of time before the children were notified that an emergency existed in the building.”