Tragic Prison and Asylum Fires

5. Seacliff Lunatic Asylum

Seacliff, New Zealand

When constructed in the late 1800s, the Seacliff Lunatic Asylum was the largest building ever built in New Zealand at that time. The asylum was built in an isolated coastal spot and forested area. It could handle 500 patients with 50 staff. Created by one of New Zealand’s legendary 19th century architects, the prison was grand in scale and design. One commentator, describing the location and scale/grandiosity of the prison remarked: “The Victorians might not have wanted their lunatics living with them, but they liked to house them grandly.”

On December 8, 1942 at around 9:45 pm a fire broke out in Ward 5 of the hospital, which was a two-story, wooden “out building” added onto the original construction of the prison. It held between 39-41

female patients, all of whom were locked inside their cells or a common dormitory. Male prison workers noticed a fire in the building and quickly tried to get the fire under control using a fire hose system. But the fire spread too quickly through the wood structure and though two women were saved, the rest perished as the flames consumed the building and it collapsed. All that could be done was to prevent the fire spreading to the remainder of the building. Either 39 or 41 people, all women, died.

4. San Pedro Sula Prison Fire

San Pedra Sula, Honduras

The true extent of the horror at the Comayaga Honduras prison fire of February 15, 2012 is still not known. The latest reports have more than 350 prisoners killed in the fire. Sadly, this fire was only of several recent deadly prison fires in the country of Honduras. On May 17, 2004 the San Pedro Sula prison fire killed 103 prison inmates and followed another deadly prison fire in Honduras only a year earlier. (the April 2003 prison fire at the El Porvenir Prison farm killed 86 prisoners).

San Pedro Sula is the second largest city in Honduras and it is an economic center for the small country. But it is also a center for gang violence and leads the country in the number of murders. Many of the gang members were housed in the San Pedro Sula prison. The fire allegedly started with an electrical short in a refrigerator kept by gang members in one of the cellblocks but it is also thought that one of the prison gangs intentionally set the fire. All of the victims were gang members. The prison was built to hold 800 but was holding almost 2,000 when the fire occurred.

3. Longue Pointe Asylum

Montreal, Quebec Canada

Even by the horrible standards of care received by those who were sent to 19th century insane asylums, the Longue Pointe asylum seemed to be something right out of a nightmare. The prisoners were chained, handcuffed and generally treated like animals, which was something all too common for such institutions.

Established in 1873 the Loungue Pointe asylum was one of Canada’s largest at the time and was completely operated by Catholic nuns. It held 1500 inmates. The fire originated around 11:30 AM on May 6, 1873 in the third ward in the women’s wing of the asylum. The asylum was divided into flats – the fire hit the fourth and fifth flats which each housed about 50-60 people. It was thought that one of the female inmates set fire to the building as she had previously tried to set fire to herself. Though there were fire hoses, it appears they were not connected to the pipes supplying the water. The women were of course kept locked away in the wards and it appears every one of them in the fourth and fifth flats died. When the fire was over, 94 of the women were dead as well as four Sister of Providence nuns.

An editorial in a Montreal newspaper the next day said that given the size of Lounge Pointe and the overcrowding it was only a matter of time until such a tragedy occurred. The paper blasted the lack of fire fighting apparatus and know how which could have saved many of the people and called for an investigation and reforms to be made to the asylum system in Canada as a result of the fire. The editorial asked if there were not in fact many large and similar public buildings which could also catch fire leading to huge loss of life, and wasn’t it just pure chance that fires did or did not kill? Also, they asked, “does not such an event (the fire) indicate that the whole system of Government inspection of asylums is for all practical purposes worthless?” The paper correctly pointed out that the chances of escaping a burning building are poor enough for the sane, but even less for the insane. It then went on to say, “the chances of a fire being started in such a place are greatly increased if over a thousand people living in it are lunatics.”

2. Ohio State Penitentiary

Columbus, Ohio USA

The worst prison fire in US history occurred on April 21, 1930 at the Ohio State penitentiary in which 322 people were killed. Built in 1890 and only designed to hold 1,500 prisoners, by the 1930s the Ohio State penitentiary was housing 4,300. It was undergoing renovations to add more space at the time of the fire and in fact, construction activities may have caused the fire (the cause of the fire was listed as ‘incendiary”).

What is known for certain is the fire started at around 5:00 PM just after prisoners had knocked off construction for the day. Did a prisoner set the fire as a diversionary tactic for a prison break? That was one possibility, though never proven. The fire began at the northwest corner of the prison roof. The fire quickly spread through the wood roof and frame of the six story tall prison. The guards became aware of the fire at about 5:20 PM but at first did not believe it. The guards quickly realized the fire was real and told Warden Preston Thomas. Thomas was convinced it was a prison break and delayed calling the local fire department, instead calling the local National Guard to come help keep order. By the time the Columbus Fire Department was notified 20 minutes later, they arrived to a scene of complete chaos and death as the fire raged through the wood structure with prisoners on the top two floors already being burned alive in their cells. Still, there may have bee n time to save at least the prisoners in the cells of the lower part of the prison, but guards later testified they were ordered not to unlock the cells and let the prisoners escape.

Finally, as the National Guard had arrived with the fire department, guards and the few prisoners who were not in cells desperately and heroically tried to get to the inmates still trapped inside. One man later said he had tried to reach a prisoner who was screaming from his cell “for God’s sake let me out, I’m burning!” but could not. He ran away as he could no longer stand the screams of the men dying inside.

As some of the prisoners were finally released from their cells, they attacked the firefighters for the fire hoses to try to save their fellow inmates. The National Guard had to put down a near riot. One guard reported: “we could not reach them for the bars, the convicts dropped to the floor, they were literally burned alive before our eyes.”

1. Comayagua Prison

Comayagua, Honduras

The full details of the February 15, 2012 fire at the prison in Comayaga Honduras are now becoming clear, and it is a horror story right out of the mind of Stephen King.

Honduras has the highest murder rate (80 per 100,000 people) in the world and has been described as a “failing state.” Gangs essentially rule the country. The country is a central area for drug and weapon trafficking between South and North America. All of the jails in the country can hold 6,000 inmates, but have over 12,000 crammed in.

At 11:00 PM on February 15, a prison inmate called the state governor Paola Castro and screamed that he was going to burn the place down. The man then set his own bed on fire. The governor dispatched fire officials to the prison who arrived but were not allowed in by the prison guards who thought the screaming they heard was part of a riot or prison break. After a delay of 30 minutes the fire fighters were allowed entrance but could find no keys to open the six barracks which each contained about 100 prisoners. All of these barracks were on fire.

It is thought that 358 died and perhaps 100 prisoners escaped but the final death toll is still unknown. Workers dragged out the charred bodies from the prison. Some inmates thought they could survive the fire by standing in the showers with the water running on them. They too died. Others were found pressing their arms against the corrugated metal roof trying to break out, piled one on top of each other.

Family members felt the fire was set by the government and was no accident. The angry crowd of relatives threatened the guards and police, who hit the crowd with tear gas and fired bullets into the ground. It is reported that half of the prisoners were not even charged with a crime and that for a prison built to hold 500, only 12 guards at night guarded the 800 inmates. One human rights documentarian stated: “When fires break out, they will not open gates to release prisoners and they die inside. It’s happened before … They haven’t learned because this is a collapsing country, they’re not interested in making change.”