Hoffman Fire Heroes
Many of us remember the day of the Hoffman fire–March 23, 1962.

It was a devastating fire that threatened many other stores in the area and for a while it looked like the whole downtown would burn down.
Many of the stores were built of wood frame and were very old, some dating back to the late 1800’s. It took all of the Niles firefighters and several other departments to knock the blaze out.

The fire was a real tragedy, not only because of the loss of life, but also it marked the beginning decline of the downtown area. Because of the fire, the adjacent buildings, Ragazzo’s (the old Wagstaff–Jenkins drug store in the 1890’s) and Pritchards had to be torn down due to the heat and smoke damage.

For more information and photographs of the Hoffman Department Store fire, click here.

Heroes of the Day – Niles Daily Times March 24, 1962
Closing time was approaching in the McKinley Federal Savings and Loan Association. Donald Walton, Secretary-Treasurer, and Julius Nagy were trying to get just a few more things done before the day ended.

Outside the offices, June McLean was getting ready to close her window for the day as were the other tellers.

Next door, in the hole in the ground that used to be Pappada’s Pharmacy and Nader’s, B.E. Fickes, a Warren steeplejack, was looking over the job his crew had done in tearing down the buildings to make room for McKinley Federal’s new drive–thru window.

At the same time, Niles patrolman John Brodie was driving along Main Street, making one last trip before returning to the station.

All were completely unaware that a minute later, they would be watching and participating in one of the worst fires in the history of Niles.

Shown here is the Hoffman store between Nick Ragazzo Shop and Pritchard's Mens Wear, both were so badly damaged they had to be torn down. SO3.56

“If they just had a net.”
“It was terrible. She was standing in the window, screaming ‘someone save me’.”
These were some of the comments these eyewitnesses made after watching three rescue attempts succeed and one fail during Thursday’s $250,000 blaze which left the H.H. Hoffman Company a shambles of ashes and charred ruins.

Walton and Nagy first saw the smoke billowing from the front of the department store and raced out their back door to the fire station on Franklin Alley. Seeing the truck roar from the fire station, they returned to see three women carried to safety and one perish in the inferno.

“They were leaning out the northernmost window on the second floor, screaming for help,” Miss McLean said. “In the window next to Pritchard’s was another woman, also leaning out and yelling.”

“If there had just been a net, maybe all of them could have jumped to safety,” Walton added.

Fickes was too busy with his work to see the smoke, but he heard the women scream. And he moved quickly. “I didn’t have a ladder of my own. Usually I have a half–dozen piled on my truck, but today my truck wasn’t here,” Fickes said. “I could have saved all of them, if I had my ladders,” he murmured.

Fickes talked to the trapped and hysterical women while awaiting the arrival of the fire trucks. He asked them to stay near the front of the building. “Stay in front, don’t go back,” he told them.

Describing the actions of the lone victim, he said he saw her walk back into the smoke but was unable to locate her after that.

“By this time the firemen were arriving–and it sure didn’t take them long to get here–and I grabbed one of the ladders and got the woman in the other window. She kept screaming, ‘Please save me, please save me,’ and almost jumped.”

It wasn’t quite that easy, according to Nagy who saw what happened. “The woman fell or jumped just as Fickes was reaching for her,” Nagy said. “He had to hold onto the ladder with one hand, and grab her with his other. Only a skilled steeplejack with a iron grip could have saved her.”

Hoffman Department Store Fire
March 23, 1962.

Brodie saw the smoke about the same time as the others did, radioed the alarm to headquarters, and raced to the store. People were shouting that people were trapped upstairs and the patrolman tried to get to them.

Without a helmet or mask, he dashed into the store which was rapidly becoming an inferno. “I made it to the stairway landing, but then the roof started to cave in and I couldn’t get any further,” Brodie said. His singed hair and eyebrows were mute evidence of his attempt.

Other eyewitnesses gave this account of the rescue of two of the three women in the window: Arnold Danes pulled the two women from the window and lowered them to George Nolan, who was half–way up the ladder. He(Danes) went back up for the third woman but a sudden gush of flames stopped him.”

Russel Samuels, City Sanitarian, said he heard the woman, who died, screaming, “I’m on fire, I’m burning.” He said she managed to crawl to the window ledge just before the fire flared out of the window and she disappeared into the smoke.

Fireman Jim Benedict said, “he and a Warren fireman tried to enter through the window, but they too were driven back by the suffocating smoke and searing heat. We got to her, but we had to let go”.

Firemen lower the close-wrapped body of Mrs. Axel Aulin, a fatality in Thursday’s fire, down the ladder from the top of the gutted building. Mrs. Aulin was trapped on the second floor as the fire raged.

McKinley Federal holds hats, coats, and boxes from Pritchard’s Clothing Store.

Jim McConnell saved almost his entire stock, plus a cash register.

Also saved was a bowl of peanuts McConnell kept in the front of the store to welcome customers.