What happened at the Dardanelle nursing home in 1990?

On 13 March 1990 a fire broke out at the Dardanelle nursing home, Arkansas. The fire spread quickly and tragically four people lost their lives.

The 90-bed nursing home was constructed in 1969 and designed to the building code of the day - it was a concrete wall construction with fire doors offering 30 minutes fire resistance.

How did the Dardanelle nursing home fire start?

The source of ignition is unknown but the fire broke out in the linen cupboard and spread at pace through concealed spaces above the ceiling. Once it was inside the void hot gases produced significant heat and ignited the asphalt upon the roof assembly.

Flaming combustible materials dropped down onto other parts of the structure, producing more hot gases and black dense smoke within minutes until flashover.

The building has a partial sprinkler system in the kitchen but was otherwise without. However, the building did have automatic smoke detection and an alarm system throughout the corridors and patient rooms, as well as fire extinguishers and emergency lighting throughout.

What can the industry learn from the Dardanelle nursing home fire?

Following a National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) investigation, the factors contributing to the fire were:

• The absence of a complete automatic water sprinkler system
• The failure of the fire compartmentation and fire stopping
• The available spread of fire through concealed spaces
• Patients unable to escape through the corridor were found dead in their rooms, overcome by toxic smoke inhalation
• One patient rescued later died in hospital from smoke inhalation
• In total 41 patients were sent to hospital