History of hotel fires in the United States
Hotel fires in the United States have had significant repercussions. For example, on January 10, 1883, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a hotel fire killed 80 people. A few weeks earlier Lucius W. Nieman had become editor of The Daily Journal, now the Milwaukee Journal. The newspaper told the "appalling story of neglect, falsehood, manipulation, and concealing of truth that had preceded the tragedy". According to Nieman, it was the reporting of that story that gave his paper a fair share of the Milwaukee newspaper readers, who also had two political and three German newspapers.
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has documented several dozen hotel fires in the United States since the 1930s that have killed more than ten people each, deeming these incidents to be fires of historical note. The Winecoff Hotel fire of December 7, 1946, in Atlanta, Georgia, which claimed 119 lives, is the deadliest hotel fire disaster in the history of the United States. According to the NFPA, the last fire in the United States that killed ten or more people according to the NFPA took place at the Dupont Plaza in San Juan, Puerto Rico in December 1986 and caused 98 deaths and 140 injuries.
On January 10, 1883, a fire destroyed the Newhall House Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, killing 71 people.
On March 17, 1899, in the deadliest hotel fire in New York City's history, the Windsor Hotel was destroyed, with approximately 86 being killed.
On February 22, 1902, the Park Avenue Hotel in New York City was partially destroyed by a million-dollar fire that killed at least 14.
On December 11, 1934, shortly before 5:30 am, a fire broke out in the Kerns Hotel in Lansing, Michigan. 34 people died and 44 were injured, including 14 firemen. The 211-room four-story hotel had been constructed of brick with a wooden interior, and the fire spread rapidly, trapping many of the hotel's 215 guests inside their rooms and forcing them to escape via fire ladders or life nets. Among the dead were seven Michigan state legislators: state senator John Leidlein and state representatives T. Henry Howlett, Charles D. Parker, Vern Voorhees, John W. Goodwine, Don E. Sias, and D. Knox Hanna, who were in town for a special session of the state legislature. Several other state legislators were injured, but survived. The fire was thought to have been caused by careless smoking. It is regarded by the Lansing Fire Department as the worst fire disaster in Lansing's history.
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