The history of fires in Albany

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) -- It has been almost a week since the devastating fire on Twiller Street took the lives of five people in Albany. Investigators are still working to determine what caused it. Those five deaths make it the deadliest fire the city has seen in more than 60 years. As the investigation continues, NEWS10’s Amber Fisher looked back at Albany’s long history with fire — and visited a local museum that keeps the stories and the lessons of those tragedies alive.

The Twiller Street Fire is a heartbreaking reminder of how quickly tragedy can strike. Fire historian and director of the Albany Firefighters Museum said that Albany hasn’t seen a fire this deadly in about 60 years. In 1966, five children were killed in a house fire on 2nd Street in Albany. About 15 years earlier in 1950, a family of five died in a fire on Quail Street.

Inside the Albany Firefighters Museum — photos, helmets, and maps trace a timeline of tragedy. Albany’s history with fire stretches back nearly two centuries — to the great fire of 1848, which tore through downtown Albany and destroyed more than 600 buildings.

 Decades later, in 1892, an explosion at the Fort Orange Flouring Mill killed four firefighters — the largest loss of first responders in the city’s history. Opalka said that the blast was caused by flammable flour dust, but the deaths occurred after the fire was put out. "The whole platoon that was there were cleaning up, and the fire was out, and just something happened and the wall collapsed and four men were killed, two instantly, I believe, and two within the next day or two. And that was the largest firefighter death in the city’s history."

Just two years later, in 1894, flames ripped through the Delavan hotel on Broadway — killing 16 people and forever changing the way the city built its buildings. Opalka added, "A big deal was codes because building codes were not really developed very well in Albany at the time of the Delavan house fire. So a lot of the fatalities were the result of what we would now call code violations. But because there wasn’t a code per se, they weren’t necessarily violations."

Now, more than a century and a half after that first great fire, Albany is mourning again. The Twiller Street fire — one of the deadliest the city has seen in years — serves as a painful reminder that behind every fire, there’s a story of loss, and of service.

The cause of the Twiller Street fire is still unknown. Stay with NEWS10 on air and online as we continue to follow the investigation.