The Station Fire

On the night of February twentieth, two thousand and three, a band called Great White took the stage at a nightclub called the Station in West Warwick, Rhode Island, about fifteen miles southwest of Providence. The tour manager ignited pyrotechnic devices as the show began. The spark caught the polyurethane acoustic foam covering the walls and ceiling around the stage.

The building was fully engulfed in six minutes.

One hundred people died. Two hundred and thirty were injured. Approximately four hundred and sixty-two people had been inside a building listed for an occupancy of four hundred and four. The building, constructed in nineteen forty-six, had been exempt from sprinkler requirements through a grandfather clause. A fire marshal had inspected the building in the months before and had not cited the foam as a code violation, though it was one.

The criminal proceedings that followed resulted in guilty pleas and prison time for the tour manager and one of the club's owners. The broader accountability, why the building's exemptions had never been addressed, why flammable foam had passed inspection, was harder to assign.

Rhode Island amended its fire code in the months following the disaster, requiring sprinkler systems in nightclubs with capacity exceeding one hundred and fifty people. The National Fire Protection Association updated its standards as well. A memorial park opened at the site in May of two thousand and seventeen.

The Station fire remains the fourth-deadliest nightclub fire in United States history.