Chicago Historical Information

1958, December 1: "A great and indescribable horror" Our Lady of Angels School Fire

On December 1, 1958 sometime after 2:00 p.m., a fire started in a trash drum in the basement stairwell of the Our Lady of Angels school, 909 N. Avers. At approximately 2:40 p.m. the first still and box alarms were called in. Engine 85 arrived at 2:44 p.m. By then, the fire had burned undetected for at least 20 minutes.

The fire spread into the stairwells and the second floor corridor, bypassing the first floor where heavy wooden doors leading to the hallway were shut. Hot air and gasses in the basement also filled an open shaft in a nearby wall, ascended two stories inside the walls and filled the cockloft above the 2nd floor ceiling. There, superheated air sparked flames in the north wing of the school. The flames eventually fell into the second floor corridor from ventilator grilles where they combined with dense smoke and gasses and made the hallway impassable. Inside the classrooms, light fixtures and transom windows exploded before the fire broke through the ceiling itself. Children and nuns were trapped. Windows offered the only egress and before any equipment was available for evacuation, children began leaping from them.

The parish priests and civilians who were first on the scene tried to evacuate the building. Engine 85, misdirected to 3808 W.Iowa, expected to find a fire in the parish church. Instead, the fire was raging in the north wing of the U shaped school on Avers, a building erected in 1910. As firemen rushed to the scene, a decision to ignore protocol and immediately request a 5-11 alarm was made. All available ambulances were also requested.

The fire was brought under control at 3:45 p.m. and the work of recovering bodies began. Ninety students and three nuns died. One hundred sixty children were saved.

A Blue Ribbon panel was convened by Cook County Coroner Walter McCarron to investigate the fire. They found it to be of undetermined origin.

The Panel also made recommendations for fire safety in all schools not grandfathered into the 1949 amendments to the Municipal Code of Chicago concerning fire protection devices in schools. In 1959, Chapter 78 of the Municipal Code of Chicago was further amended under the heading "Schools" to include the recommendations. Among them were:

1. Enclose all stairwells with fireproof construction and provide fire doors leading into them.
2. Provide fire doors at all corridors and room partition openings.
3. Require automatic fire sprinkler systems in all school buildings
4. Provide approved automatic internal fire alarm systems linked directly to the Fire Department.

The fire at the Our Lady of Angels school was suspected to have been intentionally set. Over the years at least two individuals were closely investigated, confessed and recanted. No one has been charged with the crime.

Sources:
 Chicago. City Council. Amendment to Chapter 78 of the Municipal Code. 1959.
 Cowan, David and John Kuenster.  To Sleep with the Angels: the Story of a Fire. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. 1996.
 McBride, Michele.  Our Lady of the Angels (School) Fire.  Palm Springs, CA: ETC Publications. 1979.
 Municipal Reference Collection Newspaper Clipping File: Fires--Chicago--Our Lady of Angels.

Compiled by Reference Librarians Ellen O'Brien and Lyle Benedict