9 Firefighters Die in South Carolina Blaze (Published 2007) (2024)

CHARLESTON, S.C., June 19 — The early reports were bad enough: four firefighters had died as a fire in a furniture warehouse became an inferno of exploding windows, columns of flame and steel beams twisted from 1,000-degree heat.

But just before dawn Tuesday, the real death toll became starkly clear as the last of nine bodies was carried from the wreckage. All the victims were firefighters, a loss that Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. called “difficult to fathom or quantify.”

Excluding the Sept. 11 attacks, the structure fire was the nation’s deadliest episode for firefighters in three decades. It occurred in a city that claims one of the country’s oldest professional fire departments, a city where the fire chief, Rusty Thomas, joined the department when he was 18.

“To lose nine is just a tragedy of immense proportions,” Mr. Riley said. “To lose nine is just unbelievable.”

The fire began at about 6:15 p.m. Monday at a Sofa Super Store warehouse and showroom. Firefighters rescued at least one employee, pulling him out through a hole in the wall. The flames spread quickly, witnesses said, seeming to leap invisibly from place to place.

The firefighters were spread throughout the building when the roof collapsed, officials said. There were no other serious injuries, Mr. Riley said.

“Everything was pitch black, and fires were coming up everywhere where something else could flame up,” said Kelly Lax, the cousin of Capt. Louis Mulkey, an 11-year veteran who died in the fire, relaying accounts from other firefighters at the scene. “You couldn’t set the hose down because it was winding through this maze of furniture and you wouldn’t find it again.”

Witnesses described plumes of black smoke, swirling towers of flame, fumes of burnt plastic and whooshing backdrafts. “I’ve been quoted saying it was a 30-foot tornado of flames,” said Mark Hilton, a public school teacher in Orangeburg. “It was a lot bigger than that.”

The cause of the fire is under investigation by state and federal authorities, Chief Thomas said.

Questions were immediately raised about sending so many firefighters into the building, but the chief defended the department’s actions.

“They did exactly what they were trained to do,” Chief Thomas said. “I can’t say enough for these nine guys. These nine guys were my friends. I lost nine of my best friends.”

The department prides itself on its safety record. The last firefighter death in the line of duty in Charleston was more than 40 years ago.

Michael A. Parrotta, the president of the South Carolina Professional Firefighters Association, said the problem stemmed from the state’s policies, not the performance of the firefighters. South Carolina, he said, does not follow federal recommendations that say two firefighters should stay outside a structure for every two that go in on rapid intervention missions. In South Carolina, he said, the “two-in, two-out rule” is “two-in, one-out.”

The Sofa Super Store did not have a sprinkler system, but it was up to code when the land it was on was annexed by the city, Chief Thomas said at a news conference. Mr. Parrotta said a bill that would have required older buildings to install sprinkler systems failed in the Legislature two years ago.

The chief also refuted a report that the firefighters had fed the flames by breaking out the storefront windows of the showroom, providing a new supply of oxygen. But he gave no details, saying the facts were still under investigation.

Another witness, Dan Folk, said the windows blew out by themselves. “They popped out almost in a sequence,” Mr. Folk said. “Boom, one would fall out; then a little bit later, another would pop out and shatter; then another one would shatter and fall out.”

One employee at Sofa Super Store, Sylvester Washington, said that he had been one of the first to leave that evening, but that he returned when he realized where the smoke was coming from. He saw a co-worker, Jonathan Tyrrell III, sitting at a gas station with an oxygen mask, crying and trying to breathe at the same time.

Mr. Tyrrell, a part-time repairman, had been working in the shop when he smelled smoke, Mr. Washington said. When he tried to leave, all he could see was smoke. “The firefighters punched through the wall and pulled him out.”

Mr. Washington told him: “Relax yourself. You’re safe.”

Mr. Hilton, the teacher, said it was about 10 p.m. when he saw the first sign that something had gone terribly wrong. “I saw a fireman come out bawling his eyes out,” he said. “It was then that I knew something bad had happened. That’s when I knew somebody had been hurt real bad, or was dead.”

The deaths shocked Charleston and elicited a statement from President Bush: “These firefighters were true heroes who demonstrated great skill and courage. Their unwavering commitment to their neighbors and to the City of Charleston is an inspiration to all Americans.”

All day, cars snaked past the site of the fire, a giant heap of charred wreckage adorned with flowers and American flags. All told, the men who died had more than 130 years of experience, ranging from near-rookies to a 32-year veteran.

In addition to Captain Mulkey, they were Capt. William Hutchinson, 48; Capt. Mike Benke, 49; Engineer Mark Kelsey, 40; Engineer Bradford Baity, 37; Assistant Engineer Michael French, 27; Firefighter James Drayton, 56; Firefighter Brandon Thompson, 27; and Firefighter Melvin Champaign, 46.

Ms. Lax said her cousin, Captain Mulkey, 34, had been a junior varsity and Little League coach even though he had no children. “Everybody is very torn up, of course,” she said, “but the house has been full of teenage boys that just give new meaning to the word distraught. They’re crushed. It’s very hard to look at little boys who think they are grown men trying to deal with this.”