Dupont Plaza Hotel arson
Encyclopedia
The Dupont Plaza Hotel fire was a fire that occurred at the Hotel Dupont Plaza (now San Juan Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino
San Juan Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino
San Juan Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino is a hotel casino located on the beach in Condado, San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is operated by Marriott International....
) in San Juan
San Juan, Puerto Rico
San Juan , officially Municipio de la Ciudad Capital San Juan Bautista , is the capital and most populous municipality in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 395,326 making it the 46th-largest city under the jurisdiction of...
, Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
on New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve is observed annually on December 31, the final day of any given year in the Gregorian calendar. In modern societies, New Year's Eve is often celebrated at social gatherings, during which participants dance, eat, consume alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the...
, December 31, 1986.
The fire was set by three disgruntled employees of the hotel who were in the middle of a labor dispute with the owners of the hotel. The fire claimed 97 lives and caused 140 injuries. It is the most catastrophic hotel fire in Puerto Rican history.
The Puerto Rico Fire Department
Puerto Rico Fire Department
The Puerto Rico Fire Department is the fire department for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and provides fire protection, rescue and other hazards. It was established in 1942 under the Puerto Rico Fire Services...
was dispatched at around 3:40 PM and 13 firetrucks, 100 firefighters, and 35 ambulances responded.
Background
The employees of the hotel were in the middle of a labor dispute with hotel management relating to higher salaries and medical care. Three of the employees, Héctor Escudero Aponte, José Rivera López, and Arnaldo Jiménez Rivera planned on setting several fires with the intention of scaring tourists who wanted to stay at the hotel.Fire
The hotel's labor organization (which at some point was affiliated with the Teamsters) called a meeting for the afternoon of December 31, 1986. At the conclusion of the meeting, the members voted to go on strike. Around 3:30 PM, a few men placed opened cans of a flammable liquid commonly used in chafing dishes in a storage room adjacent to the ballroomBallroom
A ballroom is a large room inside a building, the designated purpose of which is holding formal dances called balls. Traditionally, most balls were held in private residences; many mansions contain one or more ballrooms...
on the ground floor of the hotel. The storage room was filled to the ceiling with unused furniture from the hotel. While some of the labor organizers created a distraction by staging a fight just outside the doors to the ballroom, three men set the fuel alight. The fire ignited the furniture and burned out of control, growing to massive proportions and flashing over
Flashover
A flashover is the near simultaneous ignition of most of the directly exposed combustible material in an enclosed area. When certain organic materials are heated they undergo thermal decomposition and release flammable gases...
. After flashing over in the ballroom, the superheated gasses swept up the grand staircase into the lobby of the hotel. From there, the fire was sucked into the open doors of the casino by the smoke-eaters(devices in the ceiling that sucked the smoke from cigarettes out of the room) present throughout the casino. Most of the deaths occurred in the casino, as guests discovered that the emergency exit doors were locked and that the only other egress from the casino was through a pair of inward-opening doors. The casino patrons pressed against the doors to no avail. Some guests leapt from the second-story casino through plate-glass windows to the pool deck below. Others perished from smoke inhalation on upper floors of the casino. Others were killed as they rode the elevators to the lobby only to discover their path blocked by the fire when the doors opened. The fire ultimately claimed 97 lives.
Casualties
The total number of casualties of the fire has been estimated at 97, mostly by burnBurn
A burn is an injury to flesh caused by heat, electricity, chemicals, light, radiation, or friction.Burn may also refer to:*Combustion*Burn , type of watercourses so named in Scotland and north-eastern England...
s. Most of the victims were burned beyond recognition. Of the recognizable casualties, one was found in a bathroom, three were found in a lounge by the casino, another three were found in an elevator and one other was found in a fourth floor room.
Aftermath
The fire gave rise to several amendments in security policies in hotels around the world.More than 2,000 claims were filed against the hotel. The resulting litigation was, at the time, the largest civil litigation in U.S. history with over 2000 plaintiffs, 250 defendants and more than $2 billion in claims. Eventually the hotel management and most of the other defendants in the civil case settled with the plaintiffs. The remaining defendants were held not liable at trial.
Of the three employees accused of the fire, only one, Héctor Escudero Aponte, is still in prison. Armando Jimenez and José Francisco Rivera Lopez were released from federal prison in 2001 and 2002 respectively.
The Dupont Plaza was built in 1964; at the time, neither federal nor Puerto Rican law mandated fire sprinklers. After the fire, both bodies passed laws requiring hotels to have sprinklers.
The Dupont Plaza reopened in 1995 as the San Juan Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino
San Juan Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino
San Juan Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino is a hotel casino located on the beach in Condado, San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is operated by Marriott International....
after a massive overhaul effort that lasted eight years.
See also
- San Juan Marriott Resort & Stellaris CasinoSan Juan Marriott Resort & Stellaris CasinoSan Juan Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino is a hotel casino located on the beach in Condado, San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is operated by Marriott International....
- Skyscraper fireSkyscraper fireA skyscraper fire or high-rise fire is a class of structural fire specific to tall buildings. Skyscraper fires are one of the most technical fire suppression challenges posed to modern fire departments, and require a high degree of organization and cooperation among participating units to be...
External links
- Video of rescue operation on Rescue 911Rescue 911Rescue 911 is an informational reality-based television series, hosted by William Shatner. Originally intended to be only a set of three TV specials, Rescue 911 was picked up by CBS for the 1989 fall season after two specials aired on April 18, 1989 and May 9, 1989...
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Puerto Rico°N date=December 2010°W