Joelma Building, Brazil

April 9, 2009 in South America

Joelma Building is the famous 25 storied skyscraper located in Sao Polo Brazil, exactly based in “225 Avenida 9 de Julho”. It is one of the most memorable tragedies that ever took place in Brazil. At the time of the fire, the building was built of armored concrete, specifically fire-resistant but the only the fact that it had flammable items as its furniture, desks, chairs, even cubicle partitions, etc while the ceiling was made of tiles, prepared from cellulose fiber tiles, strapped in wood. Even the carpets and curtains were made of flammable substances.
The building was very weak when it came to fire safety and precaution. It had no emergency exits, no fire extinguishers, no fire alarms and no fire sprinkler systems available in the office. The only way out was the stairway, leaving no other evacuation plan in hand. None of the precautions were taken if a fire ever broke out.
It happened on 1st February, 1974 at 50 minutes past eight when one of the air conditioners present in the twelfth floor got overheated and was ignited. It was discovered almost as soon as it started and immediately within a couple of minutes, the Sao Polo Fire Department was called for help, by one of the occupants of the adjacent building. The fire department reached within five minutes but called in the fire department for more assistance.
Inside the building, the fire started creating disaster and reached the 15th floor burning the stairway all the way. It could not go any further because there were no other flammable substances there but it did fill the whole passage with so much smoke and heat that it was absolutely impassable for the occupants of the building. At first, the fire crew tried to reach the building through the stairwell but it was deemed impossible to go any farther than the 11th floor. The first floor mainly consisted of the business offices.
It was calculated that around 300 of the occupants were rescued through the elevator, which is not at all recommended by the fire safety and precaution department officials. It was also blocked after a few trips, and the four elevator operators gave in.
Approximately 150 people tried to go to the roof so that they can be rescued by the helicopter, but it was  made impossible because the helicopters could find a clear or big place to land and also that the intense heat and the dense smoke would have proven hazardous to the helicopters itself. Around 80 people went to the building’s roof and took shelter under those tiles.
There were some who were able to rescue themselves by climbing out of the ledges, others reached the aerial ladders to be rescued safely from the smoke, flames and heat. Many others could not find a way to escape and just waited for the fire crew to rescue them. A few many of them jumped off the building, trying to get hold of the aerial ladder or sustaining the fall, but all 40 of them died instantly on the spot.
Though the building was doused in flames, in around 20 minutes, at around half past ten, the fire tended to subside. By this time, the fire crew, the medical teams, and the police entered the building and looked out for survivors. It has been calculated that around 179 people died in the accident and around 300 were badly injured.
After the accident, the building was closed down for 4 years, to be reconstructed again, being named as “Praca de Bandeira”, on the name of the square opposite to it.
It was the second grave fire accident after the 1972 Andraus Building accident, which took the lives of around 16 people. After this, the fire prevention law and codes was more strongly reiterated by the legislature. – Visit Joelma Building.