Blue Bird Café fire
| Date | September 1, 1972 |
|---|---|
| Venue | Blue Bird Café |
| Location | Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Type | Fire |
| Cause | Arson |
| Deaths | 37 |
| Non-fatal injuries |
|
| Convicted |
|
| Charges | Arson |
| Verdict | Guilty |
| Sentence | Life in prison. Released within a decade. |
The Blue Bird Café fire was a nightclub fire on September 1, 1972, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In all, 37 people were killed as a result of arson.
Montreal’s Blue Bird Café and the Wagon Wheel, a country and western bar above it, were located on the west side of Union Street between Ste-Catherine Ouest and Dorchester (now René-Lévesque) in downtown Montreal, lying within the borough of Ville-Marie. The café and bar were known as places where largely working-class, English-speaking youth could come for an evening of music, dancing, and drinking.
There was lots of pitch black smoke and then a lot of heat and a lot of yellow light ... We knew it was a fire. Everyone began to panic.
On the evening of Friday, September 1, 1972, the beginning of the Labour Day weekend, more than 200 people were at the bar celebrating. Around 10:45 PM, three young men (initial reports said four) were refused entry to the upstairs bar, as they appeared excessively intoxicated. Upset by this, Gilles Eccles, James O’Brien and Jean-Marc Boutin set a fire on the staircase that served as the only regular entrance or exit for the Wagon Wheel's customers. "It was either a Molotov cocktail or gasoline spread on the stairs and then ignited," said Montreal Police Inspector Armand Chaille. The entire bar was in flames within a few minutes, according to police.
With the primary escape route blocked by the fire advancing upward toward the crowded bar, its patrons sought out other exits. However, conflicting city building codes and fire regulations had left the upstairs bar with too few fire exits for its capacity of patrons. With the bar's main exit aflame and its sole fire exit blocked, patrons were forced to use one of two escape routes: either through the kitchen onto a folding fire escape (the emergency exit was chained) or by climbing through a window in the women's restroom and dropping some 20 feet onto a parked car. While it was originally reported that 42 people had died, later investigation determined that 37 people succumbed and perished as smoke and fire overtook the bar.
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