DUPONT PLAZA HOTEL AND CASINO FIRE

SAN JUAN , PUERTO RICO

DECEMBER 31 , 1986
ABOUT DUPONT PLAZA HOTEL

• Location: Condado, San Juan, Puerto

Rico
• Current name of the hotel: San Juan
Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino by
Marriott International
• Architect of the building: Osvaldo L.
Toro and Miguel Ferrer
• Opened on: October 4, 1963 as the
Puerto Rico-Sheraton Hotel.
• It is a 20 storey building .
INTRODUCTION
• the fire occurred on the afternoon of Dec, 31 ,
1986 in the DuPont plaza hotel & casino , san
Juan , Puerto rico .

Loss: Nighty eight persons died in this fire ,

including 17 employees and 146 reported injuries
.

Place of occurrence: This report addresses the

development and growth of the fire and its
effects as it progressed through the first floor ball
room complex , the foyer , the lobby and entry
way , and the casino .
 OCCURRENCE OF FIRE
• Local authorities working with the bureau of alcohol tobacco and fire
arms determined that the fire was deliberately set using a single can of a
sterno type material to ignite guest room furniture, still in shipping
crates, stored in the occupied south ballroom.
• The fire occurred in a non sprinkelered , 20 storey hotel complex which
had two basement levels . The hotel contained the 1st floor grand
ballroom , a second floor casino ( main entrance level ) , retail shop ,
restaurants , a registration area , a function room . In the complexes'
high rise tower were 17 guest room floors and roof top restaurant .

• The complex included unprotected non combustible and some

combustible construction in the ball room area and fire
resistive construction in the casino , lobby area , high rise tower .
FAULTS IN THE BUILDING
• An investigation by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration revealed 25 safety
violations, including a lack of emergency exit doors in the casino area leading to the deaths of 84
trapped guests.
• There were no fire detection systems within the complex nor was there a fire evacuation plan for the
hotel and employee policy for reporting fire emergencies.
• only manual fire evacuation alarm system installed in the high rise tower was reportedly not working at
the time of the fire.
• A stand pipe and hose system in the high rise tower also fed a partial automatic sprinkler system that
protected areas remote from the fire and was not a factor in its outcome .
• Before national fire safety requirements were enacted in 1990, most hotels had implemented fire safety
measures based on local regulations and ordinances, which in some localities were lax, despite frequent
fires and fire-related deaths at hotels.
 ABOUT FIRE
• Once ignited, this abundant fuel load resulted in a rapidly developing fire that
quickly ignited other combustible with the south ballroom as well as ballroom
combustible interior finish.
• As word of the fire began to spread through the lower levels, flash over was
reached in the south ballroom. Fire violently vented into an unenclosed
stairway foyer area and began to spread products of combustion to the
lobby/ casino level.
• As a two storey high foyer filled with heat and smoke, glass partition in a
masonry wall that adjoined the foyer and casino soon failed. A smoke front,
followed by a flamed front, moved through casino and lobby area and vented
from west wall to the exterior.
• Once the fire reached lobby/casino, products of combustion began to spread
to the high rise towers trapping hundreds of unaware occupants.
ORIGIN OF FIRE
 HOW DID THE FIRE SPREAD?

Any source that had been located in the South
Ballroom within about 40 ft. of the fire source
would have detected smoke by this time. A quick
response sprinkler located directly over the fire
would also have operated by this time.
Any sprinkler head having an RTI ( Response
Time Index ) of less than 200 within 15 feet of
the fire source or higher RTI rated head within
7 feet of the source would have actuated
 At this point smoke starts to flow under the
soffit of the open 10 foot high door between
the north ballroom and the foyer.

With flashover at about T+ 583 seconds, the smoke

temperature in the south ballroom rises to over 1500 f,
smoke levels up to nearly the floor level, vision drops to
zero, and the oxygen content in the smoke and gases
both ballroom approaches zero. With flashover the glass
partition between the south ballroom and the foyer fails
• Hot gases flow from door between north
ballroom and foyer. Actual energy content of
these gases is slight. Conditions listed are at
T+580 seconds.
 THE RESCUE OPERATION
• Many guests were not aware of the fire until they saw or smelled it, heard
someone shouting “Fire,” or heard firefighters responding. Once they
became aware of the blaze, many moved to their balconies to await rescue.
• Many occupants of the hotel climb down from balconies through ropes and
clothes bound together.
• Others made their way to the roof, where they were rescued by helicopters
from the Puerto Rican Police, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy, and the
National Guard
THE AFTERMATH OF THE BUILDING
VERDICT

• Within weeks, three men were arrested for starting the

fire. All were members of the Teamsters union and were
involved in negotiating a new contract with hotel
management for 250 of the hotel’s 450 employees.
• On the day of the fire, the union had rejected the final
proposal offered by management and voted to strike. The
three men were found guilty of starting the fire in a pile of
furniture stored in the ballroom.
• In April 1987, a federal judge sentenced each man to 99
years in prison, Escudero Aponte, Rivera López, Jiménez
Rivera.
 CONCLUSION
• On September 25, 1990, three years after the disaster, the
United States enacted the Hotel and Motel Fire Safety Act
of 1990, requiring all hotels and other public
accommodations wanting to accommodate federal workers
or hold federally funded activities to have smoke detectors
in all guest rooms and to have working sprinkler systems if
the building had more than three stories.
• The United States Fire Administration has credited the
DuPont Plaza fire along with the MGM Grand fire in 1980
as the catalysts for the safety requirements being signed
into law.
• The DuPont Plaza reopened in 1995 as the San Juan
Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino after a massive overhaul
effort.
 THANKYOU 

• Submitted by:
• Riya tailing
• Kritika Kaushik
• Shivangi Shankar