On December 3, 1999, a five-alarm fire broke out in an abandoned cold storage warehouse 5 blocks east of the downtown business district, near the Union Station train station. Fire companies from throughout the city and neighboring towns were called in.
Due to reports that homeless persons were possibly inside, fire rescue personnel began a search of the six-story building. The firefighters' task was made extremely difficult by the large size of the building's interior, and the highly flammable composition of its interior insulation. Over nearly a century's use, the interior walls were progressively covered with various forms of insulating materials, including cork inpregnated with tar, polystyrene, and polyurethane foam, to a thickness of 18 inches of highly combustable material. Once ignited, the huge amount of fuel, fed initially by the large volume of air in the building, became virtually inextinguishable. The 6-story building's exterior walls were constructed of approximately 18 inches of brick and mortar, with no windows above the second floor level. The lack of available windows prevented firefighting personnel from making an acurate initial assessment of the fire. Initial breaching of lower-floor doors, combined with venting the building by smashing a roof skylight which resided over an elevator shaft, effectively turned the building into a huge chimney. With the fire rapidly accelerating out of control, rescue teams facing near-zero visibility became lost, with available breathing oxygen depeleted. Despite repeated radio calls for help, along with activation of audible location alarms, 6 firefighters, Paul A Brotherton, Timothy P. Jackson, Jeremiah M. Lucey, James F. “Jay” Lyons III, Joseph T. McGuirk and Lt. Thomas E. Spencer, who have since became known as the "Worcester Six", perished in the blaze.
