The Beverly Hills Supper Club fire was the third deadliest nightclub fire in the history of the United States.
What was the second deadliest?
I’m ashamed that I’ve never heard of this one: the Natchez Rhythm Club fire. 209 people died on April 23, 1940. It was the usual: the windows were boarded up to keep non-paying spectators from watching the performers, there were an estimated 746 people crowded into the building, and they’d decorated the place with Spanish moss strung on chicken wire…which was then sprayed with Flit.
This is a 30 minute documentary from 2012 called “The Rhythm Club Fire”.
Bonus #1 and #2: The only thing we learn from history is…that we learn nothing from history. Or, “Fire after fire, the lessons are the same…” The worst nightclub fire in US history took place on November 28, 1942. It was also the second-worst single-building fire in US history. I feel pretty confident that the vast majority of my readers have heard of this one: Cocoanut Grove.
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Many patrons attempted to exit through the main entrance, the same way they had entered. The building’s main entrance was a single revolving door, which was rendered useless as the crowd stampeded in panic. Bodies piled up behind both sides of the revolving door, jamming it until it broke. The oxygen-hungry fire then leaped through the breach, incinerating whoever was left alive in the pile. Firemen had to douse the flames to approach the door. Later, after fire laws had tightened, it would become illegal to have only one revolving door as a main entrance without being flanked by outward opening doors with panic bar openers attached, or have the revolving doors set up so that the doors could fold against themselves in emergency situations.
Other avenues of escape were similarly useless; side doors had been bolted shut to prevent people from leaving without paying. A plate glass window, which could have been smashed for escape, was boarded up and unusable as an emergency exit. Other unlocked doors, like the ones in the Broadway Lounge, opened inwards, rendering them useless against the crush of people trying to escape. Fire officials would later testify that had the doors swung outwards, at least 300 lives could have been spared.
492 people died.
From the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA): “Cocoanut Grove Survivors Tell Their Stories”.
Also from the NFPA: “What we still don’t know about the Cocoanut Grove fire”.