FORT COLLINS CHIEF - 1965

Photos: Fort Collins Public Library, Poudre Valley Fire Authority

On June 29, 1965, Clifford Carpenter, Fort Collins fire chief, was killed by falling bricks and mortar at the State Dry Goods store fire.

Carpenter, 49, was directing hose lines at the building College and Oak streets when an exterior wall gave way, according to the Fort Collins History Connection and Poudre Valley Fire Authority.

Firefighter Jim Witchel was injured.

The cause was determined to be an electrical timer that controlled the lights in the dry goods store show window.

Newspapers published photographs of the chief, in his white helmet, in the seconds leading to his death.

According to the Poudre Fire Authority, successor of the Fort Collins Fire Department:

"At about 9:30 p.m., an electrical timer that controlled the lights in the show window of the State Dry Goods store at College Avenue and Oak Street malfunctioned and the brief shower of sparks ignited combustible material. 

"The fire quickly spread, but was not immediately noticed because the darkly painted walls of the show window made the interior of the store invisible from the sidewalk.

"The fire burned for about an hour, slowly increasing the interior pressure to the point where one of the large windows exploded, showering shards of glass across the sidewalk and into the middle of the street.

"The oxygen that was sucked inside, caused the interior to erupt into an inferno.  By the time the Fire Department arrived, the building was fully involved.

"Mutual aid was requested from the LaPorte Volunteer Fire Department, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Loveland Fire Department.  All off-duty firefighters were called in as well.

"Chief Carpenter was notified of the alarm via the telephone extension installed in his home and responded to take command.

"He noticed that the south wall had a slight bulge in the middle and decided to go around to the south side to order the men handling the lines to back off.

 "As he and Firefighter Jim Witchel took a 1 1/2 inch charged line in close to the building to check the area where the gas meters were located, the wall collapsed covering Witchel and Carpenter with bricks and stone." 

Edward Yonker was appointed to replace Carpenter as fire chief.

Store owner Bob Johnson, in an oral history documented by his daughter Diane Thornton, recalled:

"Not only was most of our merchandise and building destroyed that night in the fire, all of our accounts and debts owed to us were burned as well. We had no record of who owed us what, and we had no way to track it down. As my brother-in-law and I worked to rebuild what we had lost, a miraculous thing occurred. Every day people of our town would stop by to give us money they owed to the department store.

"That's Fort Collins. The buildings come and go. But the people, the people have made this into a great city of big dreams and even bigger integrity."