27. Death by Fire? Probably Not
Freakonomics Radio
Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher
4.5 • 32.8K Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2011
⏱️ 20 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | So imagine it's a Thursday night and you just got off from work and you're meeting some |
| 0:07.8 | friends at a club when your favorite bands is playing. |
| 0:11.1 | And you get there, you get a beer, friends are in a good mood, when you just got a promotion. |
| 0:16.8 | The opening act isn't bad. |
| 0:19.1 | Then the headliner comes on and as they bang out the first few chords, you see this shower |
| 0:23.9 | of sparks up near the stage. |
| 0:26.1 | And first you think, hey cool, good old fashioned rock and roll pirate technique show. |
| 0:32.0 | But something goes wrong. |
| 0:33.5 | And the sparks catch the wall and fire. |
| 0:36.8 | Next thing you know, flames are shooting out from the stage right toward you. |
| 0:41.1 | And now flames rolling, the ceiling over the dance floor. |
| 0:44.2 | And the hot gases and the smoke, the toxic smoke, start coming down from the ceiling, which |
| 0:49.0 | is about 12 feet tall or so. |
| 0:51.0 | And was down to within 18 inches of the floor in less than 90 seconds after ignition. |
| 0:56.4 | So you can imagine just people trying to get out of there. |
| 1:00.0 | In this particular case, a lot of bodies ended up pushing and trying to get out and they |
| 1:04.8 | ended up stacked on each other in the doorway. |
| 1:08.3 | There were other collections of bodies throughout the nightclub that were found dead. |
| 1:14.1 | Really, really a tragedy. |
| 1:15.6 | So about 25% of the people that were in the nightclub that night died. |
| 1:19.6 | And about 50% of the people that were in the nightclub that night were seriously injured. |
| 1:24.9 | Many of them having to get multiple surgeries. |
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