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Abstract

Large loss of life fires occurred with terrifying regularity in 1940s America. While overseas, the nation’s military waged a war on tyranny and oppression abroad, at home, the country faced an enemy every bit as deadly. Tradition in the fire service has held the notion that the 1940s saw so many deadly fires due to the nation being at war. The war, it is believed, drained fire departments of manpower, dramatically increased the call volume for departments, and led departments to cut or suspend fire inspections owing to lack of manpower. With that, the consensus is that fire codes in the 1940s allowed for such deadly conditions as existed in many public buildings. The traditionally held views of these fires are incorrect. While the war did impact department manpower, it did not do so in such a way as to render departments incapable of responding. For most of the country, fire department call volumes decreased, rather than increased during the war. Major cities still routinely carried out inspections through the 1940s. Cities had fire codes that should have prevented the loss of life experienced in some of these fires. Rather than being due to the war, the root cause of these fires were negligent or incompetent inspections, and rather than the lack of adequate fire codes, it was a lack of enforcement of existing codes that caused these tragedies.

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