Cocoanut Grove Fire

Cocoanut Grove Fire, one of the deadliest fires in American history that led to significant improvements in safety laws.

WHEN: November 28, 1942

WHERE: Cocoanut Grove nightclub, Piedmont Street, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.

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Disasters of Historic Proportion

DEATH TOLL: 490 dead, including a honeymoon couple, all four servicemen sons of a Wilmington family celebrating their leave, and Buck Jones, the Hollywood cowboy movie star. Of the dead, 237 were male and 227 female.

The only entrance to the “Grove,” built in 1917, was the revolving front door. Other exits had been bricked or welded shut during Prohibition when the club was one of Boston’s hottest speakeasies. Now, a year into World War II, it was still one of Boston’s swankiest nightspots—a version of Rick’s Café Américain in Casablanca. It had edge, it had style, and it had wide lapels. The owner was also under the political patronage of the mayor, and city officials turned a blind eye as he neglected to rectify obvious safety violations. The legal capacity of the Cocoanut Grove was 460 people, but on Saturday, November 28, 1942, more than 800 patrons were there dining and dancing, along with 123 entertainers and club staff.

One long prevailing theory for the fire’s origins is this: in the lounge below the dance floor, a young couple looking for a moment’s privacy unscrewed the light bulb over their booth. At around 10:15 p.m., the barman on duty told a busboy to replace it. The boy stood on a chair and lit a match to find the socket. As he leaned forward, the flame caught the fronds of the artificial palm trees decorating the room, which then ignited the cloth-covered ceiling. The room was suddenly a fiery inferno, which mushroomed up the stairwell and sent an explosive fireball through the dining room. The only exit from the Melody Lounge was bolted; piles of blackened corpses showed where terrified patrons had stormed the blazing stairwell. Upstairs the revolving door was jammed with people clawing for the freedom of the other side of the glass. Many victims did not die in the flames but instead succumbed to smoke inhalation, with much of the substandard construction material in the building emitting toxic fumes. The 26 fire engines and 187 firefighters could do nothing to prevent people dying. There was talk of sabotage, because 64 military servicemembers died in the inferno.

Another theory traces the fire to the unlicensed, shoddy electrical wiring that ran throughout the building The Grove’s owner was jailed for involuntary manslaughter for three and a half years; the busboy was exonerated, with the state fire marshal testifying, “It is clear to me that he did not ignite the palm tree in the Melody Lounge”; and the Boston Licensing Board prohibited any club from ever again using the name “Cocoanut Grove.” The disaster resulted directly in the creation and enforcement of new safety laws (such as visible exit signs and outward-swinging exit doors). Witness statements referred to a “flashover,” and 50 years later this was confirmed by a former Boston firefighter whose research revealed the presence at Cocoanut Grove of methyl chloride—a highly flammable gas propellant used in refrigeration in place of Freon, which in wartime was in short supply.

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Apart from prompting revisions of the safety code, the Cocoanut Grove fire also saw innovations in medical treatment, including the use of penicillin and plasma to treat burn victims. These materials were later used, to great effect, to treat the wounded of the battlefields of World War II.

For many years the death toll was reckoned at 492, but a historical committee determined that two victims were inadvertently counted twice. As of the 80th anniversary of the place, only two survivors of the fire were still known to be alive. A plaque on Piedmont Street, near the site of the blaze, commemorates the catastrophe. A larger and more visible memorial in nearby Statler Park was dedicated in 2023, its three arches imitating the facade the original building.