On the evening of February 20, 2003, a fire occurred at The Station, a nightclub and music venue in West Warwick, Rhode Island, United States, killing 100 people and injuring 230. During a concert by the rock band Jack Russell's Great White, an offshoot of the original Great White band, a pyrotechnic display accidentally ignited flammable acoustic foam in the walls and ceilings surrounding the stage. Within six minutes, the entire building was engulfed in flames. The fire remains the deadliest firework accident in U.S. history and the fourth-deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history. It was also the second-deadliest nightclub fire in New England, behind the 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire.
After the fire, multiple civil and criminal cases were filed. Daniel Biechele, the tour manager for Great White who had ignited the pyrotechnics, pleaded guilty to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter in 2006 and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison with four to serve. Biechele was released from prison in 2008 after some families of the victims expressed support for his parole. Jeffrey and Michael Derderian, the owners of The Station, pleaded no contest and avoided a trial: Michael received the same sentence as Biechele and was released from prison in 2009, while Jeffrey received a sentence of 500 hours of community service. Legal action against several parties, including Great White, was resolved with monetary settlements by 2008.
Station Fire Memorial Park, a permanent memorial to the fire victims, was opened in May 2017 at the site where The Station once stood.
Background
The Station
The Station was a nightclub located at 211 Cowesett Avenue at the corner of Kulas Road in West Warwick, Rhode Island. The building that would become The Station was built in 1946 and was originally used as a gin mill, a type of bar.
Before being converted into a nightclub and concert venue, the Station building had been used as a restaurant and tavern. A fire had previously occurred at the building in 1972 while it was used as a restaurant called Julio's. No occupants were in the building during the 1972 fire, but the interior was significantly damaged. Another restaurant opened in the building in 1974. In 1985, it was converted to a pub, which closed sometime in the late 1980s, and a nightclub was opened in 1991. The nightclub was purchased by brothers Michael and Jeffrey Derderian in March 2000.
In the months before the fire, the building had been inspected twice by West Warwick fire marshal Denis Larocque. The club was cited for nine minor code violations during the first inspection in November 2002 but was not cited for the flammable polyurethane foam the venue used for soundproofing, which was against code. The follow-up inspection in December 2002 also did not cite the foam, and the inspector gave the building an "All OK" rating on his inspection form. Larocque later told the Rhode Island State Police that he had not spotted the polyurethane foam during the November 2002 inspection because he was upset after finding an illegal inward swinging door that he had previously asked to be removed from the building.
Before the fire, The Station often hosted concerts by 1980s hard rock groups and tribute bands. Local bands that had played at The Station before the fire had used pyrotechnics during their concerts without incident, including a Kiss tribute band that had set off fireballs during their show in August 2002.
Great White
For their 2003 tour, the official name of the headlining band of the February 20 concert was billed as Jack Russell's Great White, which was an offshoot of the original band Great White and led by lead singer Jack Russell. The original band had risen to fame as part of the glam metal scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s. They were best known for their 1989 cover of Ian Hunter's "Once Bitten, Twice Shy", which reached the Top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100. At the time of their performance at the Station, there were two of Great White's original members in the lineup: lead singer Russell and guitarist Mark Kendall. Kendall, who had co-founded the band with Russell in 1977, had rejoined Russell's version of the group in 2002. The rest of the lineup included guitarist Ty Longley, who died in the fire, bass guitarist David Filice, and drummer Eric Powers. Great White's popularity had waned in the decade before the Station fire, and this iteration of the band had been performing on a touring circuit of small clubs with capacities of up to 500 people. Although the band was officially known as Jack Russell's Great White at the time, and their tour was initially named after Russell's 2002 solo album For You, they were billed by The Station as simply "Great White" in error.
In February 2003, Jack Russell's Great White was on an eighteen-date concert tour. They had been using a pyrotechnic display during their performances, which some club owners had denied them permission to use, citing safety concerns. Dominic Santana, the owner of The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey, told reporters that the band had used pyrotechnics during their February 14, 2003, performance at the venue without his permission, and their contract and rider did not mention pyrotechnics displays. In the aftermath of the fire, the band and the owners of The Station disputed whether the band were allowed to use the pyrotechnic display during their concert.
Jack Russell's Great White had two opening acts for the February 20 concert: Trip, a group from Vancouver, Washington, and Fathead, a local Rhode Island band. All the members of Trip escaped the Station without injury, but two members of Fathead, cousins Keith and Steven Mancini, along with Steven's wife Andrea, died in the fire.
The concert was hosted by Michael Gonsalves, a disc jockey for Providence rock radio station WHJY who was also known as "Doctor Metal". Gonsalves was the host of the WHJY program The Metal Zone, at the time the longest-running heavy metal radio program in the United States.
Fire
Ignition
Jack Russell's Great White started their performance at 11:07 p.m. on February 20. Despite the club's maximum licensed capacity being cited as 404, a total of 462 people were in attendance during the concert.
The fire started shortly after the band began performing their opening song, "Desert Moon". During the performance, pyrotechnics set off by tour manager Daniel Biechele began to ignite the flammable acoustic foam on both sides and the top center of the drummer's alcove at the back of the stage. The pyrotechnics were gerbs, cylindrical devices that produce a controlled spray of sparks. Biechele used four gerbs that were set to spray sparks 15 feet (4.6 m) in the air for fifteen seconds. Two gerbs were at 45° angles, with the middle two pointing straight up. The flanking gerbs became the principal cause of the fire.
Within a few seconds, multiple sparks from the gerbs ignited the insulation foam, and flames were visible on the wall above the stage nine seconds thereafter. The flames were initially thought to be part of the act; only as the fire continued to grow rapidly and reach the ceiling and smoke quickly began to bank down did people realize it was uncontrolled. Twenty seconds after the pyrotechnics ended, the band stopped playing, the crowd began to back away from the stage, and lead singer Jack Russell calmly remarked into the microphone, "Wow... that's not good." Within 40 seconds of the ignition, Great White stopped playing and left the stage as The Station's fire alarm began to sound, although it was not connected to the local fire department. The Station had no sprinkler system. Thick smoke began to rapidly fill The Station one minute after the ignition, and the crowd began to evacuate the building in a frenzied panic. The fire continued to quickly spread through the building and completely engulfed it within six minutes of the pyrotechnic ignition.
Response
By this time, the nightclub's fire alarm had activated, and although there were four possible exits, most people headed for the front door through which they entered. Around 275 people attempted to evacuate the building at the front entrance, but only the first 90 people managed to evacuate, which resulted in a large crowd crush in the narrow hallway that led to that exit being blocked completely, and resulted in numerous deaths and injuries among the patrons and staff. Multiple survivors claimed that two bouncers blocked the stage door as attendees attempted to escape the building, stating the door was for use by the band, although 20 people managed to exit through that door. Twelve people managed to exit through a door meant for employees, while another 54 people evacuated through the emergency exit in the bar area. Some people who escaped the building broke windows on the left and right sides of the front of the building, providing a quick and safe exit for 24 and 54 people respectively.
The fire was reported to the West Warwick Fire Department by cellphone calls to 911 within sixty seconds of ignition. A West Warwick police officer already at the scene also reported the fire to police dispatch. The first West Warwick fire engine arrived at the scene at 11:13 p.m., followed by three other trucks shortly thereafter. Hundreds of firefighters responded to the fire, including every available West Warwick firefighter. Fire departments in Warwick, Coventry, and Cranston rendered mutual aid to the fire site. The Cowesett Inn restaurant across the street from The Station acted as an ad hoc burn triage and command center for first responders. A portion of the nightclub roof collapsed at 11:57 p.m., and a second portion in the building's sunroom collapsed at 12:07 a.m.. Individuals who needed medical treatment were transported to Kent Hospital, which was filled to maximum capacity due to the fire. By 1:30 a.m. on February 21, all the affected individuals had been transported and the street had been cleared.
Aftermath and casualties
Of the 462 people in the building for the concert, 100 (approximately 21.5%) were killed, 230 (approximately 50%) were injured, and 132 (approximately 28.5%) escaped uninjured. Longley and Gonsalves were among those who died in the fire. A total of 96 individuals died at the scene, and four more died in the hospital in the following days and weeks. The 100th and final person to die from fire-related injuries was 33-year old Pam Gruttadauria, of Johnston, Rhode Island on May 4, 2003. Four employees of The Station were killed in the fire. In April 2003, the Derderians were fined $1.07 million for failing to carry workers' compensation insurance for their employees. In an attempt to avoid the fine, the Derderians filed for bankruptcy in September 2005, and subsequently filed an appeal. The fine was not resolved until 2013, ten years after the fire, when a judge upheld it.
Providence Phoenix columnist Ian Donnis wrote of the effect that the fire had on the close-knit Rhode Island community, "The loss of so much life would represent a tragedy anywhere, but it struck especially hard in Rhode Island, the nation's smallest state, where no place is more than an hour away by car..." Many of the survivors of the fire developed post-traumatic stress disorder after the event.
Recording and account
From inception the fire was caught on videotape by cameraman Brian Butler for WPRI-TV of Providence, and the beginning of that tape was released to national news stations. Butler was present for a planned piece on nightclub safety being reported by Jeffrey A. Derderian, a WPRI news reporter who was also a part-owner of The Station. The report had been inspired by the E2 nightclub stampede in Chicago that killed 21 people three days earlier. Derderian had begun working for WPRI on February 17, three days before the fire. WPRI-TV and Derderian were criticized for the conflict of interest in having a reporter report on his own property. Derderian resigned from WPRI on June 30.
At the scene of the fire, Butler gave this account of the tragedy: