Fire Buffs promote the general welfare of the fire and rescue service and protect its heritage and history. Famous Fire Buffs through the years include New York Fire Surgeon Harry Archer, Boston Pops Conductor Arthur Fiedler, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and - legend has it - President George Washington.

Sunday, March 13, 2016

PUEBLO CENTRAL BLOCK - 1953

Photo: Pueblo Fire Museum


On Aug. 29, 1953, flames caused the collapse of the Central Block in Pueblo, Colorado - a hub of local business - and destroyed t
he neighboring McCarthy Building.

As the building crumbled, "We started running fast. Don't know where, just fast," said C.C. Wood, a Pueblo fire captain. O.G. Pope, 88, an attorney who had an office and apartment in the red sandstone block, was the sole fatality. 

Speaking in a 1990 interview, retired Pueblo firefighter 
John Mikus said the blaze "was kind of a mixed-up affair. The chiefs weren’t there as they were all at a fire chiefs’ convention. There was a new crew at the Central Station. Since they were new, they shouldn’t have gone out – they didn’t know where everything was. They even hooked onto the wrong plug."

In an interview with the Pueblo Chieftain, photographer William "Bud" Hawkins, who snapped an award-winning photograph of a falling wall, recalled: ”It wasn’t even going good when I got there. I took a lot of pictures and thought it looked like a dry run but then it took off."

Hawkins also observed: "The Central Block was pretty tall and it was built to burn: There were offices all around the outside edge and an oval thing (ground floor-to-roof rotunda) in the middle so you could walk around on all the floors and look down. That was like a flue.”

Writing in Fire Engineering in 2012, Ronald Spadafora, a New York City firefighter, noted "an atrium allows the builder to take advantage of available sunlight and provide enhanced ventilation" but "also provides a horizontal and vertical pathway for fire and the products of combustion."

The Central Block was built in 1890 and the McCarthy Building was built in 1891.

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