Joelma Building

Edifício Praça da Bandeira, better known by its former name, Joelma Building, is a 25-story building in downtown São Paulo, Brazil completed in 1973, located at Avenida 9 de Julho, 225. At 8:50am on 1 February 1974, an air conditioning unit on the twelfth floor overheated, starting a fire. There were 756 people in the building at the time. Because flammable materials had been used to furnish the interior, the entire building was engulfed in flames within 20 minutes. The fire was extinguished at 1:30pm, with 179 deaths and 300 people injured.

This happened less than two years after another deadly fire in downtown São Paulo, that of the Andraus Building. As of December 2015, the Joelma fire remains the third-worst skyscraper fire ever in terms of the death toll, after the collapse of the twin World Trade Center towers in New York City on September 11, 2001.

The Joelma Building is a reinforced fire-resistant concrete hull construction. So, the structure itself did not suffer enough damage from the fire to cause a collapse. However, the interior was furnished with flammable items. Partitions, desks and chairs were made of wood. The ceilings were cellulose fiber tiles set in wood strappings. The curtains and carpets were also flammable.

At the time, no emergency lights, posted in fire alarms, fire sprinkler systems, or emergency exits were fitted to the building. There was only one stairwell, which ran the full height of the building. An air conditioner unit on the twelfth floor, which started the fire, needed a special type of circuit breaker, which was unavailable at the time it was installed. In order to use this unit, it was installed bypassing the twelfth floor electrical control panel.

The fire was discovered at around 8:50 am, and was reported to the São Paulo Fire Department approximately 15 minutes later, by an occupant of an adjacent building. The first fire units arrived five minutes later, and immediately called for assistance.

Inside, the fire reached the building's only stairwell and climbed as high as the 15th floor. It did not reach any higher because of a lack of flammables in the stairwell, however it filled the stairwell with smoke and heat, making it impassable. Fire crews attempted to gain access to the building using this stairwell, but could not go any higher than the 11th floor.

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