"The next time this happens again..." Thinking about the Bangkok nightclub fire

[jmowreader]

On February 20, 2003, the Station nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island, burned to the ground. One hundred people, including the band's guitarist Ty Longley, died either in the fire or as a result of it. In the next few days, we all learned a lesson about the hazards of polyurethane foam, pyrotechnics, overcrowding, hair metal, cheap bastard club owners and antiquated fire codes. I remember saying something like, "the next time this happens again, we'll all sit around wondering how we could have been so stupid."

The next time this happened again was Wednesday night. At the Santika nightclub in Bangkok, pyro used on stage ignited polyurethane foam soundproofing while over a thousand people celebrated the New Year under it. Fifty-nine people died in this blaze; 229 more were injured and some of them may die. We also learned that the club owner barred the fire doors to keep people from sneaking in without paying the cover charge--shades of the Cocoanut Grove fire in Boston, where Barney Welansky welded the fire doors shut to keep people from sneaking out without paying their bills.

Is basic life safety completely incompatible with profit in the bar business? It seems to be; if you read reports of any large nightclub disaster basic safety precautions weren't followed. From flammable decor at the Cocoanut Grove to aluminum wiring and bad construction at the Beverly Hills Supper Club to the ceiling being painted with roof coating at The Station*, reading the reports of these disasters reveals glaring disregard for the lives of our fellow man that even a schoolchild would see.

And the next time this happens again, we'll all sit around wondering how we could have been so stupid.

* This is no shit: The Station had an acoustic tile ceiling to help in soundproofing the premises. Acoustic tile is white when you get it. A white ceiling doesn't fit in with the motif of a hard rockin' palace...so they painted it black. This is no mean feat; ceiling tile soaks up paint like a sponge. My guess is, after they put ten coats of black paint on the tile and the tile still was gray, or because the painter knew tile absorbs paint before he started, someone went to the local lumberyard, bought 25 gallons of asphalt roof coating, and painted the ceiling. Unfortunately, when you heat roof coating that's been used to paint a bar ceiling up enough, it melts and drops globs of flaming tar on the patrons. This happened at The Station. It's also capable of conducting fire across the room, similar to an arsonist's "streamers," but that probably wasn't an issue here--at a certain temperature you experience a phenomenon called "flashover," where everything in the room just catches fire at once, and polyurethane foam will get you to that point quickly. (http://www.jedimaster.net/great_white.htm)