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The 1991 Hamlet chicken plant fire refers to a fatal fire at the Imperial Foods chicken processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina, U.S., on September 3, 1991. Twenty-five people were killed and fifty-six injured after being trapped behind locked fire doors. Hamlet is a city located in Richmond County, North Carolina. ...
Motto: (Out Of Many, One) (traditional) In God We Trust (1956 to date) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington D.C. Largest city New York City None at federal level (English de facto) Government Federal constitutional republic - President George Walker Bush (R) - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence from...
September 3 is the 246th day of the year (247th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Background
The building was eleven years old. Imperial's owners usually kept the doors of the chicken plant padlocked and the windows boarded-up.[1] This was done to prevent people from stealing chicken, vandalising the premises, and committing other petty criminal offences. It would later prove fatal. There had been no safety inspection by the state due to a lack of inspectors.[2] The poultry inspector, however, had visited the site, and was aware of the fire violations, as well as the fact that much of the chicken was rotten, and that the reason it was proccessed as it was was to disguise the taste. For whatever reason, however, he did not report these violations.[1]
Fire The fire began when a twenty-five foot long fryer vat spontaneously ignited at around 8:30 AM.[2] There were ninety employees in the facility at the time. There were no sprinklers in the building,[1] so the fire spread rapidly, causing trauma-related injuries to some of the survivors as they rushed to escape.[2] Large quantities of thick, acrid smoke were produced by a combination of burning soybean oil and chicken, and melting insulation. The facility also contained a quantity of asbestos.[1] A foot (plural: feet or foot;[1] symbol or abbreviation: ft or, sometimes, ′ – a prime) is a unit of length, in a number of different systems, including English units, Imperial units, and United States customary units. ...
vat can be a type of barrel used for storage. ...
Spontaneous combustion can have several meanings: The self-ignition, or apparent self-ignition, and burning of any mass; often of highly flammable materials, such as a pile of oily rags; see combustion. ...
Sprinkler A sprinkler is a device used for the distribution of water from plumbing pipes, by spraying it into the air. ...
Binomial name Glycine max Merr. ...
Fibrous asbestos on muscovite Asbestos Asbestos Asbestos (a misapplication of Latin: asbestos quicklime from Greek : a, not and sbestos, extinguishable) describes any of a group of minerals that can be fibrous, many of which are metamorphic and are hydrous magnesium silicates. ...
Workers attempted to escape through the locked doors by kicking them down, but without success; casualties were high, with twenty-five fatalities; in addition, fifty-six people received injuries such as severe burns, blindness, respiratory disease from smoke inhalation, neurological and brain damage, and post traumatic stress disorder.[2][1] The injured were sent to several different hospitals for treatment for burns, smoke inhalation, and stress-related disorders. Burns can refer to: Burn A Scottish clan: see Burns (clan) George Burns (actor) George H. Burns (baseball player) Ken Burns Robert Burns, a Scottish poet C. M. Burns, aka Mr. ...
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or psychological factors. ...
Smoke inhalation is the primary cause of death in victims of indoor fires. ...
Neurology is a branch of medicine dealing with disorders of the nervous system. ...
Brain damage or brain injury is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. ...
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), is a term for the psychological consequences of exposure to or confrontation with stressful experiences, which involve actual or threatened death, serious physical injury or a threat to physical integrity and which the person found highly traumatic. ...
Emergency response Over 100 medical and emergency service personnel attended the scene.[2] The emergency response has, however, come under heavy criticism in the aftermath of the blaze. Fire Chief Fuller, in charge of the emergency response, refused help several times from nearby Dobbins Heights fire department, located just five minutes drive away. The department was comprised of African-American volunteers, and there have been allegations that there was racial prejudice on the part of the Fire Chief, especially since the workers were also of an ethnic minority.[1] However, Fuller has defended his desicion, saying at the time he refused assistence he did not realise the doors were locked, and adding "In a fire like this you need good, seasoned people."[1] Witnesses have also said that there were only two oxygen tanks on site, hopelessly inadequate for the large number of casualties.[1] An African American (also Afro-American or Black American) is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ...
Immediate aftermath It was immediately clear that the workers had been trapped by locked fire doors, garnering much controversy. A spokesman for the company admitted that "certain doors" in the plant were locked at "certain times", but refused to elaborate on which doors.[2] Clark Staten, of the Emergency Response and Research Institute in Chicago said in response to the blaze, "If the initial reports can be believed, this is an intolerable set of circumstances that should result in criminal charges being placed against those responsible for having the fire doors locked... Our past experience with fires and fire deaths shows that we must insure an adequate number of open exits from any occupied building...It's hard to believe, in today's day and age that any business owner or manager would be so insensitive to fire safety as to allow this sort of incident to happen."[2] This article is about Illinois largest city. ...
Investigation Investigators found indentations left on at least one door by people attempting to kick it down.[2] They also discovered concentrations of bodies around fire exits and in a meat locker.[2] They concluded that the high number of deaths and injuries were caused by the locked fire doors. A fire escape is a type of emergency exit that is external to a building. ...
Criminal prosecution The owners of Imperial Foods were all charged with non-negligent manslaughter. All were found guilty and given ten year prison sentences.[3]
The disaster and subsequent prosecution have been used as textbook cases. One such book states:
...the case of the Imperial chicken plant in Hamlet, North Carolina, where twenty-five deaths occurred when the factory caught fire. Imperial's owners had padlocked the plant's fire exits to stop petty pilfering of chicken; each of the owners received a ten-year prison sentence for non-negligent manslaughter. -Henry, Stuart; Mark M. Lanier (1998). Essential Criminology, p. 1. 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ...
The incident is also the basis of a chapter in Political Crime in Contemporary America: a Critical Approach (1993).[4]
References in popular culture - Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon wrote a song about this incident called "Hamlet Chicken Plant Disaster". It is included in their album Prairie Home Invasion.
- The disaster is the subject of a documentary film entitled Hamlet: The Untold Tragedy. Although the project is currently looking for funds for completion, a 20-minute version entitled Hamlet: Out of the Ashes is currently on tour.[1]
Eric Reed Boucher (born June 17, 1958), better known by the stage name Jello Biafra, is an American punk rock musician and political activist best known as the former lead singer and song writer of the Dead Kennedys. ...
Mojo Nixon (born August 2, 1957) is a satirical psychobilly musician. ...
Prairie Home Invasion is an album released by Jello Biafra with Mojo Nixon in 1994. ...
Prairie Home Invasion is an album released by Jello Biafra with Mojo Nixon in 1994. ...
See also Large Bonfire File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911, was the largest industrial disaster in the history of the city of New York, causing the death of 146 garment workers who either died in the fire or jumped to their deaths. ...
The Stardust Disaster refers to a fatal fire which took place at the Stardust nightclub in Artane, Dublin, Republic of Ireland in the early hours of February 14, 1981. ...
The Happyland Fire killed 87 people trapped in an unlicensed social club called Happy Land in New York City, on March 25, 1990. ...
The 2006 Kolkata leather factory fire was a deadly fire in a leather factory that occurred on November 22, 2006 in the Tannix International, Topsia, in the South 24 Paragana district of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), West Bengal, India. ...
The 2006 Moscow hospital fire was a fire that occurred on December 9 in a drug addict rehabilitation centre in Southern Moscow, Russia. ...
References - ^ a b c d e f g h i Hamlet: the Untold Tragedy - Organica News - Obtained January 29, 2007.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i FIRE VIOLATIONS KILL TWENTY-FIVE IN CHICKEN PLANT - emergency.com - Obtained on January 18 2007.
- ^ Henry, Stuart; Mark M. Lanier (1998). Essential Criminology, p. 1.
- ^ Aulette, J.R. & Michaelowski, R. (1993). "Fire in Hamlet: a Case Study of State-Corporate Crime" in Political Crime in Contemporary America: a Critical Approach, (ed. Tunnell, K). New York: Garland (pp.171-206).
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