NFPA Journal - July/August 2018 - 96

HOTLANTA

THE DAY THE ATLANTA BRAVES'
STADIUM BURST INTO FLAMES
By Angelo Verzoni
t was the summer of 1993. The
Atlanta Braves were coming off of a
World Series appearance the season
before, and on July 18 they acquired
all-star first baseman Fred McGriff
in a trade with the San Diego Padres. But two days
later, on the night of McGriff 's first game on the
Braves' home field at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, something else took center stage.
About an hour and a half before game time, an
unattended food heating device that had an open
flame sparked a fire in a luxury box and quickly
spread to six other boxes and nearby stands.
"A spark became a flame and quickly became a
roaring blaze," a CNN anchor said at the time.
"Batting practice actually continued while flames
licked upwards from the blazing box and black
smoke billowed out." Fans who had arrived early
were evacuated, and eventually, players on the

96 | NFPA JOURNAL * J U L Y /A U G U S T 2 0 1 8

FIRE INCIDENTS AND
OTHER NOTABLE EVENTS
FROM SAFETY HISTORY

field diverted their attention
from practicing to the fire.
It took firefighters almost 30
minutes to reach the flames
because there was no stairwell
leading directly to the boxes,
according to CNN.
The game was played two
hours late and for a slightly
smaller crowd, since the fire
left about 10,000 of the stadium's more than 50,000 seats
unusable. "I've been rained out,
I've been snowed out ... but not
fired out of a ball game," Hall of Fame announcer Jack Buck remarked
to CNN about the peculiar incident. No one was injured.
A week after the fire, officials from the Atlanta Fire Department
met with stadium officials and recommended they make a number of
changes, such as installing standpipes according to NFPA 14, Installation
of Standpipe and Hose Systems, and protecting all enclosed areas with
automatic sprinklers.
A 1994 article in Fire Engineering magazine said the incident shed light
on safety concerns at the dated facility. "Constructed in 1956, before the
city adopted codes mandating that stadiums be sprinklered, the stadium
has no standpipes and only partial automatic sprinkler system protection,"
the article reported. "In addition, the fire department's ability to fight a fire
in the stadium is hampered by the fact that there are no stairwells. Consequently, firefighters must hand-carry the hoses to the fire floor by ramps."
Fire Engineering also reported that stadium officials did not make
any of the changes the fire department recommended, knowing that
the stadium would be closing in a few years. Instead, additional fire
extinguishers were installed, fire-resistant material was used in the
reconstruction of the boxes, emergency procedures were updated, and
open-flame cooking devices were required to be constantly attended.
Fulton County Stadium closed in 1996 and was demolished the
following year.
THE NFPA LIBRARY AND ARCHIVE holds a rich collection of books, reports, and photographs
that document important moments in fire history. To provide better electronic access for researchers and to preserve our unique archival holdings, work has begun to digitize the files of the Fire
Record Department, the original NFPA department responsible for collecting and analyzing information and compiling statistics about key fires and other events. The incidents featured in "Looking
Back" are drawn from this collection and will eventually be part of NFPA's online archive. For information, visit nfpa.org/library.

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Looking Back

http://www.nfpa.org/library

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - July/August 2018