Joseph Rodriguez / Greensboro News and Record photos
On April 13, 1985, the largest fire in Greensboro’s history destroyed turn-of-the-last-century warehouse buildings–including some that were nearly finished being renovated into apartments–on both sides of the 300 block of South Davie Street. The three-alarm fire was battled for hours, it destroyed and severely damaged seven buildings, and kept fire crews on scene for eleven days. One person was killed, a homeless man whose body was discovered six days later. Here are research notes compiled from news reports, the Greensboro Fire Department 1990 history book, and other sources.
See photos and clippings in this Google drive.
The Setting
April 13, 1985. Temperatures in the lows 60s. Sky was clear. [GFD90]
The 300 block of W. Davie Street. Commercial and warehouse buildings built in the 1910s and originally occupied by the Dixie Belle Textile Company on the east side of the street and the Odell Hardware Company on the west side of the street. [GFD90]
The buildings being extensively renovated as part of a highly publicized development. Called Greensborough Court, it was hoped to transform the area into a large downtown residential, retail, and office occupancy. [GFD90]
That night, Mrs. Elsie Troxler and friends were returning home from a party about 10:45 p.m. They observed white smoke and flames coming from one of the buildings. [GFD90]
Unable to find a nearby phone, they drove to the bus station at 321 West Friendly Avenue. [GFD90]
At the bus station, employee Mrs. Betty Strader reported the fire to Communications at 10:54 p.m. [GFD90]
Initial Timeline
10:54 p.m. – Caller reports fire. Building address later determined as 321 S. Davie Street, the Dixie Bell Building, an 85-year-old empty warehouse.
10:56? p.m. – First alarm, E4, E2, E7, L4. [GNR, 4/16/85] First firefighters were on scene within two minutes. [GFD90] Exact dispatch time may have been 10:57 p.m. [GNR, 4/14/85]
10:58 p.m. – Engine 4 was first to arrive with Captain Bob Bost, Driver Craig Lewis, and Firefighter Paul Minor. As soon as rolled under the railroad bridge on Davie Street, they could see a lot of smoke in the streets. [NR20]
Engine 4 reported heavy black smoke showing from the second floor. Soon after, Engine 4 also reported smoke coming from the building next door. [GFD90]
Initial Actions
Lewis hooked a hose to the fire hydrant across the street, while Bost and Minor entered the building. “We […] had to crawl over a bunch of mattresses and old furniture to get to the steps,” recalled Minor in a News and Record retrospective in 2020. They climbed stairs to a mezzanine and it was “really, really hot up there.” They started flowing water, started hitting the fire, but it just kept getting hotter. ““The building had been burning for a long time and we didn’t know that.” [NR20]
Engine 2 was second to arrive. Skip Nix was the driver. They set up a 24-foot extension ladder and sprayed a stream through a window. Said Nix in the 2020 story, “The intensity of the smoke coming out of the windows began looking like smoke coming out of a jet engine.” [NR20]
Second Alarm, Command Post
Command post was established near Blumenthal’s store on South Elm Street. Early command decision was made protect the planned Greensborough Court apartments on the west side of Davie Street and concrete efforts on the fire in the buildings on the east side of the street. [GNR, 4/16/85]
11:04 p.m. – Approximate time of second alarm requested by Battalion Chief Danny Shumate. It added two engines and one ladder. [GNR, 4/16/85]
11:05 p.m. – Crews under the direction of Captain Ed Swayer observed extreme fire conditions on multiple floors and signs of a pending backdraft. Over the next number of minutes, the crews withdrew from inside the structures as the fire rapidly advanced. Chief Shumate ordered the start of defensive operations. [GFD90]
Flames Intensified
11:10 p.m. – About that time, fire intensified. Flames were shooting from the building and roof was glowing red. Crews evacuated the building and others came down ladders. Two fire trucks were backed away about 50 feet, toward Washington Street, and crews sprayed them with water. Then a floor collapsed and glass, bricks and debris blew into the street. Onlookers more than a 100 feet away were forced by a hot blast of air, and flames shot more than 55 feet across the street and started licking the top of the Greensborough Court building. Soon, fire erupted in the north corner of the building. [GNR, 4/16/85]
11:15 p.m. – By that time, flames could be seen through still intact windows of the top floor of the Greensboro Court Building. [GNR, 4/16/85]
11:17 p.m. – By that time, Battalion Chief Danny Shumate reported that the fire now involved three or four buildings and called for more resources. [GFD90] He told the crews to get away from the building and start attacking from the outside.
11:20 p.m. – Reported the News & Record, “Then […] there was a crash of broken glass and flames shot out of the front of the building as firefighters scurried from ladders. Almost simultaneously a wall collapsed in back, seconds after a police officer warned about a dozen spectators away.” [GNR, 4/14/85]
Immediately after the first wall collapse, flames and heat forced firefighters away from the building and the flames quickly spread to the 313, 315, and 319 buildings. Two fire trucks were backed away about 50 feet, toward Washington Street, and crews sprayed them with water. At the same time, fire started showing from a building on the opposite side of the street.
[GNR, 4/14/85]
[ Are these the same events as the backdraft, listed below? ]
“Flames only flickered from the edge of the top of the [west side] Greensborough Court building for about 30 minutes. During this time firefighters concentrated their efforts on the east side of Davie, mostly ignoring the small amount of fire on the west side.”
The Backdraft
11:27 p.m. – Backdraft occurred in the original fire building. The explosion blew both the front and rear walls into the streets and covered the entire area in smoke and dust and bricks and other debris. Medical assistance was immediately requested as command feared that personnel were injured or killed. [ What was the Guilford County EMS response? ] Within a few minutes, it was determined that several firefighters were only slightly hurt. Crews resumed their suppression efforts which now involved multiple buildings and flames shooting hundreds of feet into the air. [GFD90]
From the 2020 retrospective: About this time, crews started seeing the smoke starting to turn like a tornado and moving back into the windows. It was the signing of an impending backdraft. Said Nix, “Chris Bowman and myself [were] taking down the ladder […] when the backdraft occurred.” The resulting force “blew nine firefighters and officers to the other side of Davie Street.” [GFD90]
The explosion blew out the front and back of the original fire building and sent smoke, dust, and bricks into the street. Nix remembers the blast rendering Firefighter Bob McClean unconscious. Crews moved him to safety from the middle of the street. After the backdraft, said Nix, “we had heavy fire coming out of every door and window of the building.” [GFD90]
Crews start moving their fire trucks back, as did News and Record photographer Joseph Rodriguez. He had been on scene since the first crews arrived and he also moved his car farther away. “I was literally shooting over the shoulders of the firefighters,” Rodriguez recalled in the 2020 retrospective. He remains thankful that the fire department allowed him to stay on scene. “Obviously they were working and I was working, and as long as I stayed out of their way that was all right.” [GFD90]
Sequence of Events – Question
The following events were reported as occurring at 11:20 p.m. by original news reports. Were these the same events as the backdraft?
Second wall collapsed on the east side of the street, second blast of hot air, gasses, and flames shot across the street and forced onlookers back. [GNR, 4/16/85]
Equipment caught fire on the fire trucks. Said the fire chief later, “equipment built to withstand 1300-degree heat caught fire.” [GNR, 4/16/85]
At the same time, the windows blew out of the Greensborough Court building on the west side of the street. [GNR, 4/14/85]
Within minutes, most of the top of the building was involved. And/or, the building was immediately consumed in flames. [GNR, 4/14/85]
Burning embers also ignited a pile of lumber and building supplies being used by the developers. [GNR, 4/14/85]
Temperatures in the east side building were 2,000 to 3,000 degrees, and crews could not contain that amount of radiant heat, which caught the west side building on fire. [GNR, 4/16/85]
Once the Greensborough Court building caught fire, they had two major fires occurring at once. And the fire chief and his top officials had no visual contact with some of their firefighters. “If there ever was a worst-case scenario, this was it.” [GNR, 4/16/85]
Fire Extends Across the Street
11:30 p.m. – About this time, walls of the other east side buildings began to collapse. [GNR, 4/14/85]
11:33 p.m. – As additional alarm resources were being deployed, fire blew across the street, over the heads of firefighters, and into a large building across the street. Fire advanced through the structure at a fast rate, because all four floors were open, with walls under construction as part of the renovation. [GFD90] The shooting flames were cited as caused by exploding paint. [GNR, 4/15/85]
12:10 a.m. – By this time, six buildings were now involved on both sides of the street. And an intense, hot wind had turned the street into an inferno. Crews “rushed to train their hoses on buildings not yet involved in the fierce blaze.” [GNR, 4/14/85]
2:36 a.m. – Fire was contained.
Battalion Commander C. N. Haigler had been called to the scene as the situation escalated and had taken command of overall suppression operations.
Fire Chief R. L. Powell had also responded and coordinated the overall command post. [GFD90]
There were 68 city firefighters [GNR, 4/15/85] or 96 city/county firefighters? [GFD90] on scene. Mutual aid was provided by county units both on scene and covering city stations. [GFD90]
At the height of the fire, over 8,000 gallons of water per minute was flowed. [GFD90]
The Larger Scene
Public Works monitored and adjusted water pressure at Mitchell Pumping Station as needed. [GNR, 4/16/85]
Hundreds of spectators crowded along the police barricades. Included dozens of teenagers from the nearby Depot and numerous well-dress adults from the Carolina Theater, where the O. Henry Festival let out about 11:30 p.m. [GNR, 4/14/85] They came in cars, on foot, and on bicycles. “Many brought instamatic cameras.” [GNR, 4/15/85]
Spectators had the best views of the fire from behind police lines at McGee and Washington streets. Said a Guilford County commissioner, “We were down last night” and “I came back to see it again in the daylight.” [GNR, 4/15/85]
Police evacuated the few residents who lived downtown in the area. They also evacuated the nearby Rhinoceros Bar at about 12:15 p.m. At that time, burning cinders were falling on the street, which was about two blocks from the fire. [GNR, 4/14/85]
Though the fire had threatened to extend to Elm Street, crews were positioned in that area and helped by a shift in the wind.
Cinders were spread by a brisk wind and landed as far west as the old telephone building complex on Eugene Street. [GNR, 4/15/85]
Firefighters stayed on site for 11 days, spraying water on the smoldering debris and extinguishing spot fires. [GFD90]
Rest, Rehab, Injuries
Chief Powell was at home at the time of the fire. He didn’t get any sleep until a nap at 2:00 p.m. the next day. He slept for two hours and then went back to work. [GNR, 4/16/85]
The fire also demonstrated to Chief Powell the need for a fireground management system. He later authorized the training division to implement SOPs for an incident command system. In March 1986, a six-month training program was started, and full field implementation started on October 1, 1986. [CFD90]
Four firefighters were injured, none seriously. [GNR, 4/1585] Eight firefighters were injured, said the fire chief later. [GNR, 4/16/85]
Firefighter Bob McClain injured his back slightly after one of the walls collapsed at/around 11:20 p.m. He was rescued and continued working. [GNR, 4/14/85]
By 12:10 a.m., exhausted firefighters halted “their efforts momentarily to whiff oxygen.” [Where was rehab located? How many rehab stations were there? ] [GNR, 4/14/85]
No civilians were believed to have been injured, though one fatality was later discovered. See below.
One Fatality Later Discovered
Six days after the fire the charred remains of an adult male were found in the rubble at 321. S. Davie Street.
He was identified as Rozelle Bryant, 35.
He was a homeless man and was identified from old chest x-rays.
It appeared to investigators that he was asleep on a mattress. He was a smoker and had been drinking alcohol.
Probable cause was determined as a carelessly discarded smoking material that ignited burlap bags of cloth strips that were stored in the building.
Fire spread was attributed (a.) delayed detection, (b.) large amount of combustibles stored in the buildings, and (c.) large fire door left open between the first two buildings involved.
Run Card
Three alarms
First alarm – E4, E2, E7, L4
Second alarm – Two engines, one ladder
Third alarm – Two engines and more
GFD – 68 firefighters from 15 companies [GNR, 4/15/85]
GFD – Three reserve trucks to city stations [GNR, 4/16/85]
Mutual aid, from NR, 4/16/85
Fire District 14 – To scene
Alamance – To scene
Guilford College – GFD 9
Pleasant Garden – GFD 4
Pinecroft-Sedgefield – GFD 10
Damage
Seven or eight buildings were severely damaged or destroyed on both sides of Davie Street. [ From Sanborn Maps, there were three adjoining occupancies involved on the west side of the street, and six occupancies on the east side. ]
At least one building was reduced to rubble. Others were largely gutted. [GNR, 4/15/85] On the east side of the street, five buildings were destroyed. On the west side, the interior of a large building was gutted. [GNR, 4/15/85]
All were jointly owned by Jefferson-Pilot and First Home Federal as part of a rehabilitation project. The renovations were 60% [GNR, 4/15/85] or 80% completed at the time of the fire. [GNR20]
On the west side of Davie Street, the three-building warehouse complex of the old Odell Hardware Company were being converted into a 92-unit upscale apartment building. [GNR20]
The joint venture lost $5 million on the project. [GNR20]
Abbreviations
- GFD90 – Greensboro Fire Department 1990 history book
- GNR – News and Record
- GNR20 – News and Record, April 13, 2020 retrospective
Sources
- Greensboro Fire Department 1990 History Book – Read digital version
- Greensboro News and Record – April 15, 16, 17, 1985
- Greensboro News and Record – April 13, 2020
- National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form – Downtown Greensboro Historic District – December 31, 1984 (or earlier)
- Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, 1950