December 1, 1958: The day a small fire started in the basement of a Chicago parochial elementary school. Because of a number of fire code issues and human error, the fire raged unchecked for over 40 minutes until superheated gases caused the entire building to erupt in flames. With the exception of one or two classrooms, everyone on the second floor was either burned alive or choked to death on the hot, thick, black smoke.
Today marks the 49th anniversary of the fire that killed over 90 students and several Nuns and teachers. If you've been a WVBC.NET board member for a while, you may remember I mentioned this last year. It remains a news story I follow with keen interest.
If you have a few minutes, or, better yet, a few hours, spend some time with the website that charts the events and aftermath of the Our Lady of the Angles school fire:
http://www.OLAfire.com
For what it's worth, almost every current fire code pertaining to schools and places of public assembly can be traced to the lessons learned at this incident.