Nearly 500 lives were lost in the 1942 fire that engulfed the popular Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston in what remains one of the highest fire-related death tolls in American history, reports The Boston Globe.
The Piedmont Street fire quickly spread throughout the venue, trapping most of the patrons and employees inside the doomed structure. It has been estimated that Cocoanut Grove was over capacity by more than 500 people on the fateful night.
Chris Jelenewicz of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers told CBS Boston that “When people started to exit through the revolving door, the revolving door got blocked and bodies just started to pile up behind this revolving door.”
According to the Boston Fire Department’s report, the fire was first noticed in the basement before spreading upstairs “like a chimney” because of the high amounts of carbon monoxide.
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