The Blue Bird Café Fire | Historical Disaster Stories

The blue bird café was a popular two-story nightlife complex which housed a thriving cocktail lounge on the first floor, Upstairs was the Wagon Wheel a country and western bar which featured live music and was quickly becoming the place to be for country and western fans as it was one of the few places in the city that played this type of music. The blue bird and wagon wheel catered to a younger crowd, mostly from a working-class background who enjoyed drinking, dancing and live music.

On the evening of Friday, September 1, 1972, the Blue bird café was packed full of over 200 people who were drinking, singing and dancing the night away celebrating the start of the labour day weekend. At around 10.45 pm, whilst people were enjoying themselves upstairs, Three young men, Gilles Eccles, James O’Brien and Jean-Marc who had been day drinking and decided to join their friends at the wagon wheel were refused entry to the upstairs bar as they appeared to be to intoxicated

The three men were furious about the rejection and wanted to teach the doorman a lesson. The men drove to a nearby gas station and filled a plastic container with gasoline. The plan was to start a fire, empty the building and get the doorman fired. Boutin and O'Brien decided to carry out their prank while Eccles remained in the car (allegedly passed out in his seat). The pair lit a small fire by pouring gasoline onto the stairwell leading up to the bar and ran. The stairwell was the only regularly entrance and exit to the wagon wheel. The bar began to fill with smoke seemingly out of nowhere. Within minutes, the entire bar was engulfed in flames.

The fire claimed the lives of 37 people and injured 54 others. Emergency responders on the scene noted that the smoke was so thick that the skin of those who were rescued was completely black and covered in soot. This is the story of the Blue Bird Cafe Fire.

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Source
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/...
https://globalnews.ca/news/57498/gall...
https://montrealgazette.com/news/loca...
https://www.firewiseconsulting.com/fi...
https://web.archive.org/web/201206301...
https://globalnews.ca/news/281340/40-...