Our Lady of the Angels (OLA) School Fire, December 1, 1958

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OLA Fire FAQ

1.	Why should anyone care about a fire in a Catholic school that happened nearly half a century ago?
2.	How did the fire start?
3.	What is the name of the boy who confessed to setting the OLA fire?
4.	Why not reveal the name of the boy suspected of setting the fire now that he is dead?
5.	Why was the death toll so high?
6.	How did the fire burn undetected for so long in a building crammed with over 1,200 people?
7.	Why didn't someone in the school activate the fire alarm sooner?
8.	Why did it take so long for the fire department to arrive after the fire was discovered?
9.	Why was the fire not reported to the fire department sooner?
10.	How did the central corridor of the north wing to become impassible so quickly?
11.	Did firemen entering the burned-out school after the fire really discover whole classrooms of dead children sitting at their desks?
12.	Did the nuns really tell the children to sit at their desks and pray, instead of trying to escape?
13.	Why didn't they at least TRY to escape through the central corridor and down the west stairs?
14.	What was it about Our Lady of the Angels School that made it a 'fire trap'?
15.	Was the school janitor, James Raymond, in some way culpable in the fire?
16.	Which victims were included in the funeral mass held at the National Guard Armory on Friday, December 5?
17.	Why were only 28 of the (then) 90 victims included in the funeral mass at the National Guard Armory?
18.	How did two nuns survive the fire when some of their students perished? Shouldn't they have stayed until every one of their students was safe?
19.	To which hospitals were the injured taken?

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1.	Why should anyone care about a fire in a Catholic school that happened nearly half a century ago?
	Because this fire has many lessons to teach us about fire safety, and if those lessons are forgotten, it will happen again.
2.	How did the fire start?
	The cause of the fire was never officially determined, but all evidence points to arson. Many theories were proposed, from student smoking, to some stranger flicking a cigarette into the school, to spontaneous combustion. The most powerful evidence of arson did not come until 1962, when a 13-year-old boy, accused of setting fires in Cicero, confessed to setting the OLA fire 3 years earlier. In family court, however, he recanted his confession. The judge threw out the case against him, for several reasons: (1) The boy was too young to be convicted of a crime, even if he was guilty; (2) His confession included a wild tale of his teacher pushing him and other students out of their classroom window into a fireman's net, then jumping herself, all of which was demonstrably false; (3) There was some question about the admissibility of his confession since his parents were not in the room during questioning; (4) The judge was hesitant to hang the death's of 95 people on a young boy without an airtight case; (5) The judge, a Catholic, may have wanted to spare the church the bad press and potential liability that would have resulted from the boy being found responsible (why didn't school authorities more closely monitor a boy in their care, who was known to have emotional problems).
3.	What is the name of the boy who confessed to setting the OLA fire?
	His name will not be revealed on this website.
4.	Why not reveal the name of the boy suspected of setting the fire now that he is dead?
	Because the boy was never convicted of setting the fire, it would be unfair to his family to publicly name him and brand him an arsonist. Although he passed away in September 2004, his family members, who bear no responsibility for the OLA fire, do not deserve the shame and humiliation and potential danger that could result from publicly accusing their father or brother of so heinous a crime.
5.	Why was the death toll so high?
	There were numerous factors contributing to the high death toll: (1) The school was a firetrap, extremely unsafe and unsuitable to house children; (2) The fire smoldered and burned for 15 minutes to an hour before being detected, so when it was finally detected, it was already raging out of control; (3) Once fire entered the second floor corridor, it's fury and intensity increased extremely quickly; (4) Each classroom had two exit doors, yet with the exception of room 207, both opened into the same central corridor, which quickly became impassible, leaving only the windows as possible escape routes; (5) The understandable reluctance of children to jump 25 feet to solid concrete from their classroom windows meant that by the time they were forced to either jump or die, there was insufficient time and window space for everyone to escape; (6) The classrooms were overcrowded, increasing the time required to get everyone out. As the fast-moving fire began invading the classrooms and children scrambled to the windows, some children were knocked down and injured in the panic, preventing their escape. Some of the smaller children were unable to even reach a window due to the crowd of children gathered at the windows; (7) The window sills in the classrooms were rather high (37 inches) and wide, making it difficult for smaller children to pull themselves up and out, particularly when competing for space with so many other children; (8) The long delay between the time the fire started and the arrival of the first fire department units gave the fire a deadly head start; (9) Before fire actually invaded the classrooms, parents in the alley and in the courtyard were yelling at children in the windows not to jump, fearing they would be injured or killed, assuming they would soon be rescued by firemen; (10) A roll of material similar to roofing felt, or tar paper, was apparently stored under the stairs in the fire stairwell. As this material burned, it generated a tremendous quantity of thick, oily smoke, which likely contributed to children being overcome and asphyxiated more quickly than they would otherwise have been; Even though the school had regularly scheduled fire drills, these turned out to be useless because the normal exit routes used in these drills were unavailable for those in the second floor classrooms in the north wing. The children and teachers in these classrooms faced a situation they had never rehearsed during fire drills, so there was no plan to follow. They were entirely on their own in deciding what to do.
6.	How did the fire burn undetected for so long in a building crammed with over 1,200 people?
	Several things contributed to this: (1) The fire started at the foot of the one stairwell in the school that was virtually never used, and consequently, no one was in that area to notice the fire; (2) Due to the limited supply of oxygen in the confined stairway, the fire apparently smoldered for quite some time, gradually spreading up the staircase. The smoldering fire steadily grew hotter and hotter, but because it lacked oxygen, did not yet produce a lot of smoke, which might have alerted occupants of the building sooner. When a window at the bottom of the stairway finally broke from the intense heat, the sudden influx of fresh air caused the smoldering fire to burst into flames and spread extremely quickly. (3) Heat from the fire smoldering in the basement entered a pipe shaft leading directly to the two-foot high attic between the false ceiling and roof. Temperatures in the attic gradually increased to combustion level and beyond, and when the window broke below, the resulting influx of superheated air, containing plenty of oxygen, caused much of the attic to burst into flames. At about the same time, fire was racing up the stairway at the east end of the central corridor. The fire in the attic dropped into the corridor through two air vents, and combined with the fire and superheated air coming up the stairway, quickly ignited the entire corridor.
7.	Why didn't someone in the school activate the fire alarm sooner?
	The alarm was sounded within a few minutes after the first occupants of the building discovered the fire, but: (1) There were only two fire alarm switches in the entire school, both in the opposite side of the building from where the fire was burning. Thus, no one in the north wing, where the fire was, had access to an alarm switch, and those in the south wing did not become aware of the fire as soon as those in the north wing. (2) The school's policy was that the fire alarm should only be activated with the permission of the principal, presumably in an effort to prevent false alarms. But the principal was substituting for an ill teacher in a classroom on the first floor of the south wing, and could not be found to authorize activating the alarm. (3) By one account, the teacher who finally activated the alarm, Pearl Tristano, attempted to do so as she was ushering her class out of the school, but the alarm failed to sound. Once her students were safely away from the school, she returned and was able activate the alarm. Miss Tristano testified that she activated the alarm prior to exiting the school, and at least one of her students remembers her doing so. But if in fact she was unable to activate the alarm the first time, that certainly contributed to the delay.
8.	Why did it take so long for the fire department to arrive after the fire was discovered?
	The first fire department units arrived less than three minutes after the first call was received reporting the fire. The problem was not the fire department's response time, but the delay in reporting the fire.
9.	Why was the fire not reported to the fire department sooner?
	According to testimony from school janitor James Raymond, he discovered the fire between 2:20 and 2:25 p.m. He said that upon returning to the school from nearby parish property, he noticed smoke and saw a red glow through a wire re-enforced frosted glass window, and realized a fire was burning. He then immediately ran into the rectory next door, and told the housekeeper, Nora Maloney, to call the fire department because the school was on fire. Her call was received by the fire department at just before 2:42 p.m. If Raymond was correct about the time that he discovered the fire, then there was an unexplained delay of 15 to 20 minutes between his discovery of the fire and Nora Maloney's call to the fire department. There are several possible explanations for this apparent delay: (1) Perhaps Mr. Raymond was simply mistaken about the time he estimated he had discovered the fire, and it was actually closer to 2:40 p.m. If so, there was no delay in his reporting of the fire. (2) Perhaps Mr. Raymond was correct about the time, but attempted to battle the blaze himself before reporting it to the housekeeper. This seems unlikely for the following reason: Mr. Raymond testified that he did not delay reporting the fire by attempt to extinguish the blaze (or for any other reason). Therefore, if he DID in fact delay in reporting the fire, he lied when he said he didn't. But if he was willing to lie, why didn't he tell a more believable lie by claiming he didn't even discover the fire until 2:40? It is therefore likely that his claim that he did not delay reporting the fire is the truth; (3) Perhaps the housekeeper, Nora Maloney, did not call the fire department immediately when Mr. Raymond directed her to do so. Possible reasons for this might be:     (A) Perhaps the housekeeper did not understand what he said and therefore did not call until later, when she realized what was happening;     (B) Perhaps the housekeeper spent time looking up the telephone number of the fire department (there was no 911 service at that time, although emergencies were commonly reported by dialing the telephone company operator, who would then notify the proper authorities);     (C) Perhaps the housekeeper looked up the phone number but misdialed it several times before giving up and calling the operator;     (D) Perhaps the operator who took the housekeeper's call did not promptly report it to the authorities for some reason. Housekeeper Nora Maloney testified at the Coroner's Inquest that she called the fire department immediately after Mr. Raymond informed her of the fire, which she believed was around 2:40 p.m. Her testimony makes alternative (1) above the most likely. Inside the school, students and teachers first started noticing smoke at around 2:30 p.m., yet not a single call was received by the fire department from inside the school. The teachers presumably did not call the fire department because they were busy evacuating their students from the school. And unlike today, there were no telephones in the classrooms, and of course no cell phones. Teacher Pearl Tristano in room 206 discovered smoke in the corridor outside her classroom sometime around 2:30 p.m., but did not report the fire at that time because she did not know where any of the fire alarm switches were. She consulted with teacher Dorothy Coughlan next door in room 205, who then attempted to locate the school principal, in accordance with school policy, but was unable to find her. Returning to her classroom, Coughlan and Tristano then lead their students out of the school to the church next door. Miss Tristano located and activated the alarm (which rang only in the school, it was not connected to the fire department) by pulling a fire alarm switch in the south wing of the school. There are conflicting reports as to whether she activated the alarm as she exited the school with her class, or when she returned to the school after depositing her students safely in the church. In any case, the alarm in the school first sounded at about the same time the fire was first reported to the fire department, at 2:42 p.m. Whatever the reasons for the delay in reporting the fire, once the fire department was called, they arrived at the scene within about three minutes.
10.	How did the central corridor of the north wing to become impassible so quickly?
	Apparently the fire smoldered for a long time due to a restricted supply of oxygen, gradually spreading up the stairway and raising the temperature in the lower stairwell. As the air became hotter and hotter, it ascended through an open pipe shaft leading to the attic above the second floor. Then, at the base of the stairway where the fire began, the intense heat finally shattered a nearby window to the outside, providing a huge volume of fresh oxygen to the fire. The already superheated stairwell burst into flames, while superheated air flowing up the pipe shaft into the attic quickly ignited fires throughout the attic. The stairwell became a virtual chimney, drawing huge amounts of oxygen in at the bottom, pumping smoke and superheated combustion gases upward into the open second floor hallway. The fires burning in the attic quickly dropped into the central corridor through two air vents in the ceiling, combining with the fire that was boiling into the corridor from the stairwell. The corridor very quickly became completely impassible. Two factors made conditions in the central corridor immeasurably worse: (1) A large roll of material similar to roofing tar paper stored at the bottom of the stairway was burning intensely, generating huge quantities of thick, oily black smoke, and; (2) The flat roof of the school had been tarred and papered over so many times through the years that the fire could not burn through, which would have vented much of the heat and smoke. Instead, the heat and smoke built up in the attic, starting fires throughout, which quickly dropped down into the central corridor and, not long after that, into the classrooms.
11.	Did firemen entering the burned-out school after the fire really discover whole classrooms of dead children sitting at their desks?
	NO! Firemen did discover a few children sitting at their desks, apparently frozen by fear and overcome by smoke before they could move. Perhaps they realized they could not escape and collapsed back into their seat in despair. Maybe they started to pass out from smoke inhalation and instinctively sat down. No one will ever know exactly why a few were found sitting at their desks, but the oft repeated rumor that 'entire classrooms full of children were found sitting at their desks' is entirely false.
12.	Did the nuns really tell the children to sit at their desks and pray, instead of trying to escape?
	Yes and no. When they first realized a fire was burning in the school, the central corridor was already hot and quickly filling with smoke. At that point, fire and smoke had not yet started penetrating the classrooms. The nuns realized they were trapped between running into a smoke-filled hallway, and jumping from a high window -- both of which entailed great risk. They chose initially to avoid both of these extremely risky alternatives in favor of waiting for the fire department. In an effort to help keep the children calm (and of course to seek help from God), a few of the nuns told their students to pray.
13.	Why didn't they at least TRY to escape through the central corridor and down the west stairs?
	When the nuns realized a fire was burning in the school, the central corridor was already frighteningly thick with smoke. Without knowing where the fire was located, no one in their right mind would risk sending young children out of a relatively smoke-free classroom into a hallway filled with smoke, hoping they would find their way to safety and not run headlong into the fire. The nuns had no way of knowing how bad the fire would soon become -- if they could have looked two hours into the future, they would no doubt have attempted such an escape, despite the risks. But all they knew at that time was that a fire was burning somewhere in the building, and might well be blocking ALL internal means of escape. Besides, they expected the fire department to arrive quickly and extinguish the fire, and that would be that. So they had three choices: 1) Send a large group of frightened young children into a hallway filled with smoke, without knowing where and how bad the fire was, and whether or not it was even possible to escape via some internal route. 2) Open the windows and encourage the children to jump 25 feet to concrete and crushed rock, with the certain knowledge many would be severely injured and possibly killed. 3) Wait for the fire department to arrive and either put out the fire, or rescue them. Because they soon heard the approaching sirens of fire engines, and because the first two options carried a very great risk of injury or death to their children, the nuns chose option 3 -- wait for the fire department. Unfortunately, the fire was moving much faster than could have been anticipated, and it began invading the classrooms before firemen arrived. That left only two choices: jump or die. By that time, in some of the classrooms, there was simply not enough time or window space for everyone to escape. Heavy, oily, suffocating black smoke quickly overcame anyone not already at a window. While many jumped or were pushed from windows, many others were overcome before they could get to a window. When the roof collapsed over rooms 208, 209 and the central corridor, a blast of superheated air surged through the north wing, probably dooming all who remained. It is easy to be armchair quarterbacks today and pronounce what SHOULD have been done. And had the nuns foreseen what was to come, they would certainly have made different choices. Without such knowledge, they did what was most reasonable under the circumstances.
14.	What was it about Our Lady of the Angels School that made it a 'fire trap'?
	Although the school passed a fire inspection two months before the fire, being an older building, it was not required to comply with many of fire safety laws passed since its construction. As was common with building codes and fire codes, new buildings were required to comply, while existing buildings were given years, even decades, to come into compliance. Thus, OLA did not have to comply with the fire safety regulations enacted in 1949. The following items contributed to the school being unsafe: (1) The school did not have a fire suppression (sprinkler) system; (2) The school had only one fire escape, located between rooms 206 and 207 on the east side of the school, and serving only those classrooms and room 106 on the first floor. For all other classrooms, the only means of egress was through the central hallways of the school (or jumping out a window); (3) There were only two fire alarm switches in the entire school, and both were located in the south wing. The fire occurred in the north wing; (4) The stairwells were not fire resistant. They were constructed of wood, including their enclosures, as was the rest of the school's interior; (5) Most of the stairways were not equipped with fire-safe doors at each floor. In particular, the east end of the second floor central corridor in the north wing had no fire door separating it from the northeast stairway where the fire started - it was completely open. Had there been a fire-resistant door here, more than likely no lives would have been lost. A set of double doors on the west end of the central corridor separated it from the west stairways, but these doors had large glass panes, making them ineffective in blocking fire. (6) The fire extinguishers in the school were mounted seven feet from the floor, out of reach even for most adults and therefore, nearly useless; (7) There were no smoke or heat detectors in the school. Had the alarm system been hooked into a system of detectors, most likely, no deaths would have occurred; (8) The fire alarm was not connected to the fire department, so when activated, it sounded only in the school; (9) The nearest fire call box outside the school was a block and a half away, not within the required 150 feet from the school's entrance. Anyone wanting to turn in an alarm would not only have to run a block and a half, but they would first have to know where the box was located; (10) The exterior of the school was brick and mortar, but the interior was made almost entirely of wood. Beyond that, the floors had been repeatedly coated and polished with flammable petroleum based varnishes and waxes; (11) The roof was not vented to allow heat and smoke to escape in the event of a fire. As a result, the temperature above the classrooms quickly reached ignition temperature, igniting fires throughout the attic; (12) The flat roof had been repeatedly coated and sealed with tar and tar paper. Because of this, the fire was unable to quickly burn through the roof, which would have vented tremendous amounts of heat and smoke, possibly making conditions in the classrooms survivable for a little longer; (13) Glass transoms above classroom doors quickly shattered from the heat, allowing fire to enter the classrooms much more quickly than had there been no transoms; The replacement school, built on the site of the old school, corrected nearly all of these deficiencies, making it perhaps the safest school in Chicago when it opened in 1960.
15.	Was the school janitor, James Raymond, in some way culpable in the fire?
	No. There was such outrage at the appalling loss of life that great pressure was exerted on officials to determine how and why the fire happened, and who was responsible. In their search for answers, Mr. Raymond, the school janitor, became an easy and obvious target for suspicion, made worse by the unexplained discrepancy between the time he claimed to have reported the fire and the actual time the report was received. Also, the fire started in an area of the school typically associated with janitors -- in the basement, near the boiler room. In the desperate search to assign blame for the disaster, Mr. Raymond came under suspicion when it became apparent that the fire started in or near discarded school papers. Perhaps, many thought, "sloppy housekeeping" on the part of the janitor was to blame -- in the vacuum created by the inability of investigators to determine the cause, it was one of the few explanations that seemed to make sense. People questioned: why hadn't the waste papers been removed to the incinerator? (Answer: Although Mr. Raymond often removed waste paper daily, he was only required to do so weekly, on Tuesdays -- the fire occurred on Monday.)
16.	Which victims were included in the funeral mass held at the National Guard Armory on Friday, December 5?
	Karen Baroni Richard Bobrowicz Peter Cangelosi Aurelius Chiapetta Joan Anne Chiappetta Bernice Cichocki Roseanna Ciochon Millicent Corsiglia Mary Fanale Lucille Filipponio Janet Gasteier Carol Gazzola Joseph King Patricia Kuzma Rose LaPlaca Edward Pikinski Nancy Pilas James Profita Roger Ramlow Diane Santangelo Antoinette Secco Paul Silvio
17.	Why were only 28 of the (then) 90 victims included in the funeral mass at the National Guard Armory?
	The families of all the victims were offered the opportunity to be included in the funeral mass at the armory, but many chose to hold private wakes and funerals for their children, away from public view. The nuns were memorialized at their own funeral mass at the OLA church the day before.
18.	How did two nuns survive the fire when some of their students perished? Shouldn't they have stayed until every one of their students was safe?
	In a fire as fast-moving and destructive as the OLA fire, there is indescribable confusion, panic and chaos. The rooms were quickly filling up with thick, black, suffocating, blinding smoke, making it nearly impossible to breathe, let alone see anything in the room. Everyone was packed around the windows, frantically trying to escape. In the midst of this chaos and panic, the nuns were desperately trying to save their children. In room 209, Sister Davidis believed all her students were out before she climbed down a ladder. But one girl, Beverly Burda, had been overcome by smoke and was unconscious on the floor. In the thick, blinding smoke, Sister Davidis was unable to see Beverly until she was out of the room on the ladder. By that time, the room was engulfed in fire, and rescuing Beverly would have been impossible. The only other child from room 209 to die was Valerie Thoma. Although she managed to escape, she was badly burned and suffered a head injury when she fell from a window. She died several months later in the hospital. No one may ever know the exact circumstances of Sister Helaine's escape from room 211, where 24 of her students perished. Certainly Sister Helaine would not have intentionally abandoned her students to save herself. The most likely scenario is something like this: Sister Helaine was probably at a window, probably the one nearest her desk at the west end of the classroom. She was no doubt frantically trying to get her students out of that window. But this classroom was extremely overcrowded, stuffed with 64 students. And being eighth graders, the oldest in the school, they were physically larger than students in other classrooms. Therefore, students were very tightly packed at the five windows, making it difficult to climb out. Sister Helaine saw this, and was likely at her window pushing, pulling, tugging, trying to get them out. When the room finally flashed over, a fireman probably grabbed her and dragged her out at the last second. By that time, she was already severely burned and probably blacking out -- afterwards she did not remember being rescued. Another possibility is that she was in the window helping students escape, and as the room started to flash over, a surge of students desperately pushing toward the windows shoved Sister Helaine out, into the arms of a fireman. No doubt, she would have preferred to remain with her students until all were safely out, but she was probably forced out due to circumstances beyond her control.
19.	To which hospitals were the injured taken?
	St. Anne's Hospital, 4590 W. Thomas Street Franklin Boulevard Community, 3240 W. Franklin Blvd Walther Memorial, 1116 N. Kedzie Ave. Garfield Park Community, 3821 W. Washington Blvd. Norwegian American Hospital, 1044 N. Francisco Ave.

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