Grue Church and Richmond Theatre Fire are among the most infamous fire disasters to occur in the American history prior to 1900. The former catastrophe was the worst as it claimed the lives of between 113 and 117 church congregants. It happened on 26 may in 1822 at Grue in Norway. On the other hand, the latter disaster took place on 26 December 1811 at Richmond in Virginia and claimed the lives of 72 civilians congregated in a theatre. Even though the two fire disasters took place eleven years apart, they have some similarities and differences in their emergency and disaster preparedness.
The Grue church was elected from a renovation of an old section that used remnants of another building, which stemmed from the 13 th century. Using the old-fashioned stave methods the church had been rebuild in the 16 th century. The materials used were hand worked round and logs that supported by one central tower (Troy, 2017). On the upper side of the nave, there were two transepts of broad galleries that allowed the church to accommodate a great number of people close to 700. The transepts and the nave had doors that were poorly designed as they opened from the inside. When opened they acted as a barrier to the entrance door of the galleries. This aspect also acted as a challenge when the fire outbreak occurred (Lejeune, 2017). Due to their opening nature, it made it difficult for the rescue team to open them from the outside as the pressure from inside outdid the efforts of making them stay open.
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Additionally, the windows were located high up on the wall and were covered by leaded iron frame grid from outside. This aspect made the windows a hard alternative exit strategy for the congregants when the fire disaster occurred (Troy, 2017). Its accessibility was reduced close to impossible when the fire emergency happened. The victims of the fire made great efforts to climb to high levels and risked their lives when jumping from great height to rescue their lives. The exterior of the church was a great contributor to the spread of the fire as it was covered with pine tar, which is highly flammable. This aspect combined with high flammable materials made the fire spread so fast even before the congregation could be rescued.
On the other hand, the Richmond Theatre was constructed five years before the fire outbreak. Similar to the church building it was located in the same location as a previous building that had been abandoned for years. It was renovated to form a barn-like building, which had served the purpose of a theatre (Disasterous History, 2013). The building was erected as multi-storey and used bricks as the major material of construction. The design of the building had the lower, upper balconies and an orchestra, which had narrow doorways. The sap filled pine roofing was extremely flammable and made the fire to spread fast.
The poor design of the theatre made it hard for the victims to escape when the fire outbreak happened. The room had a single staircase to the box seats, and the three exists within it were not enough to make appropriate rescues (Disasterous History, 2013). All the three doors opened from the inside, which made opening them during the rescue process difficult. Similar to the church designs the windows were also constructed so high such that it was difficult for the victims to use it as an exit strategy during the disaster. The staircases were made of flammable materials, which made it collapse during the fire due to the fire and the weight of the people escaping from the fire outbreak.
In both situations, there was poor planning of the building’s designs, which had limited exit avenues. The buildings were constructed with extremely flammable materials that reduced the span of putting out the fire. The narrow doorways that opened from inside and inaccessible windows made it difficult for the victims who had panicked during the outbreak to crash each other. The aftermaths of the two scenarios were reforms in policies that governed the construction of buildings in the two states. One of the consequence policies is that which prescribed that all doors of public buildings should be constructed to open from the outside.
References
Disasterous History. (2013, February 24). The Richmond Theater Fire America's first major loss of life fire Dec 26th, 1811. Disasterous History . Retrieved from https://disasteroushistory.blogspot.co.ke/2013/02/the-richmond-theater-fire-americas.html
Troy, J. (2017). Grue Church. Daily Frogstorm . Retrieved from http://frogstorm.com/daily/2017/6/24/grue-church
