>> This fire was significant not just to our state and to the community here, but to our nation.

>> As a professional in the fire protection and fire service world for my entire career, the Cleveland School fire was one of those tragedies that occurred that changed the code for the entire country and even around the world.

>> The Cleveland School fire goes back as far as I can remember.

My daddy talked about it all the time.

>> Entire families were wiped out.

Former Governor West's father died in the fire.

The coroner died in the fire that impacted Camden so very much, as well as the entire community.

>> The whole family was burned, so there was no one to go home.

Just the horse and buggy would go and stand at the house, but there was no one to go home.

But almost everyone in the community lost someone or several.

>> It's the single largest loss of life due to a fire in the state.

But if I'm not mistaken, it's also the single largest loss of life in any one day in South Carolina outside of war.

We owe it to the lives lost and the families in the communities affected to learn as many things we can from fires like that.

>> Most of them were kids.

>> Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong.

77 people lost their lives, and it took so many of those deaths for us to realize that something had to change.

>> They always wonder if they could have done more or think, well, why didn't I do this?

Or why not do that?

Or could I have done more?

>> My grandmother talked about the fire and my grand uncle also talked about the fire.

But I really didn't realize it actually was not just a story, it was true.

>> I know that people have tried to tell that story, but unfortunately it hasn't been heard.

>> It was 20 years before this community was rebuilt because it was so hard hit from, from the fire.

>> We still battle, we the fire service, still battle some of the same issues that occurred 100 or 200 years ago.

>> It just says a lot about that whole community.

I mean, how they stuck together, they survived this.

And, you know, realized life goes on and you just have to, you know, we have tragedies and pick it up and keep marching on.

But I think that probably made that community even stronger.

>> Every one of these codes is a tragedy.

It took a tragedy to write this code.

>> With new generations and new events, we generally forget, and it was our intention that the Cleveland School fire that occurred on May 17th, 1923, that those events never be forgotten.

♪ ♪ ♪ (silence) (crackling fire) (crackling fades) Narrator> Camden, South Carolina, South Carolina's oldest inland city, just 32 miles northeast of Columbia.

Camden's history is decorated with major battles of both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.

But this quaint town of fewer than 9000 residents holds another significant place in history, but one that few people outside of Camden realize.

Its impact on modern fire safety standards across the nation is profound.

Its impact on the citizens and families of Camden is immeasurable.

This is the only known picture of the Cleveland School.

What stands in its place today is a symbol honoring lives lost, ♪ and a constant reminder for present and future generations that we should never forget the lessons learned from our past, so that tragedies like this never happen again.

♪ >> I always have been overwhelmed by Camden because it's considered one of the oldest inland towns in South Carolina, and a lot of history, a lot of history around here.

♪ (soldiers yelling and guns firing) >> Camden is a small town.

If you've been here, everybody knows everybody.

>> Kershaw County was in the... battles, of Revolutionary War battles.

And there's some famous battle sites there.

Sadly, it's known for the Cleveland School fire, one of the largest loss fires in America and certainly South Carolina.

>> You know, I've asked many people around Kershaw County, have you ever heard of Cleveland School fire?

Most of them have heard of it, but don't know exactly what happened.

We get, I hate to say it, I guess, sensitized to certain things.

And we don't really pay a lot of attention to them as we should.

History is such an important part of the fire service, and, that's why I feel that it needs to be told.

It needs to be put out there so we don't lose what the Cleveland School fire meant to a community.

>> Any loss of a life in a fire is tragic, but 77 is catastrophic.

I hope that this event, this recognition, renews our commitment to keeping our community safe from fire.

Carter Jones> A number of us so recognized that its 100th anniversary.

So we formed a little informal committee made up of members of the Beulah Church congregation, the fire departments in Kershaw and Camden and a few others, association leaders here, and decided that this would be a significant event that would call attention to what happened there and would allow people who never heard of the fire learn the importance of what took place that night.

♪ (crackling fire) ♪ (crackling continues) (crackling fades) ♪ Vickie Pritchett> Fire really is everyone's fight.

And fire does not discriminate.

Happens to the rich, happens to the poor.

It can happen to you.

And so we really do need to be working together and #fireserviceonevoicetome captures the essence of that.

And it energizes me to make sure that I'm sharing and working hard and doing all I can to be a part of this movement.

And I hope that others will watch this documentary and will relate to the fact that they too, can be part of Fire Service One Voice.

>> I don't think hardly anybody really knows, at least my age, about the Cleveland School fire.

I know that it's not a very well known topic.

So and I part of the reason I picked that for my research topic was just because not many people knew about it, and it's something that they should know about, because the reason we have fire safety is because of it.

I became interested in the Cleveland School fire when my father, Captain Gary Finkle of the Myrtle Beach Fire Department, attended the historical seminar and the memorial service for this event back in May of 2023.

And when it came time for our National History Day projects, the theme was Turning Point in History, and I remembered him talking about the impact that it had on fire codes and fire safety, especially in schools in our state.

So I figured that that would be a good topic to consider for this project.

My reaction after researching, especially was just how eye-opening all of it was, and the fact that so many lives were lost with such a preventable tragedy.

There were things that should never have happened.

♪ Narrator> The Cleveland School in Camden, South Carolina, was built in 1909 by a member of the community.

♪ It was a 50 by 23 ft, two story building made of wood with a metal roof.

♪ The first floor consisted of a small entryway that led to two classrooms.

The second floor, accessible by a single narrow staircase, was used as a gym and for other school activities.

♪ The school housed grades 1 through 12 for the entire community.

♪ Ann Seegars> This was the last year they were going to have school.

I think the children were very excited because they were doing this because it was graduation.

I think they had gotten up that morning and, got the school, got their report cards, came home, and the mothers had made 'em special dresses to wear back to the program that night.

So it was an exciting day for them.

The play they did that night was Topsy Turvy.

And of course, it would've been all age groups.

Everybody went to the same school, so it was all ages from first grade.

Around 300 people came and just imagine 300 people in a small auditorium.

I would imagine it was standing room only.

And so it was way too many people.

♪ It was the social event of the year for that community.

And it was a packed house that night.

Around 9 p.m., they were transitioning from Act Two to Act Three when someone looked up and noticed that there were flames on the ceiling.

She alerted a couple gentlemen in there.

Before they could get up to react... Bruce Edwards Davis> A lantern of some kind had fell from the ceiling, and it ignited the hay that covered the stage.

My mother says, no, I'm going to get out of here.

And she did.

And had she not, I wouldn't be here.

So their family was seated near the front, and she, but she was, was sat with some friends near the rear of the building.

And that enabled her to escape.

>> It builds really quickly.

There was reported that they were using burlap sacks as curtains.

So once that lamp fell onto the stage, it burst into flames.

The burlap curtain caught on fire.

It rose up.

♪ Carter> Of course, there was no fire protection in rural Kershaw County, and electricity had not made it out into the rural area at the time of this fire.

There were a few telephones.

There were a few electric lights, but not in this community.

It was about six miles from the fire department, and it would take a while for that old pumper to travel the dirt road to the school.

And I can only envision that the driver of the fire apparatus could see the glow in the sky from several miles away.

And his mind was probably focused on what is left, because it would take a while for the fire department to respond that distance.

Carter> Our coroner at the time, Coroner Dixon, they said he was stuck in a stairwell near the bottom.

There was, there was no way he could get out.

And that was when most of the reports that a lot of people died in the stairway because they were stuck, there was nowhere for them to go.

Rev.

Dixon> My daddy, he was taking what he knew from his daddy that was in it.

And, and his granddaddy that died in it, which was the coroner at the time, and when the fire occurred, he wouldn't talk about it much.

He never did talk about it much at one time.

But that was the last thing he talked about in tears.

And he was describing some things to me then, my granddaddy, him and some people was got together and broke... broke the flagpole down on the roof because there was a flagpole on the roof.

Also, I believe there was another at the far end of the building, but there was one on the roof, and they got together and broke that flagpole down.

That saved a lot of lives when they did that.

♪ He helped rescue people in that fire.

And sometimes you either have survivor's guilt, or you felt like when you're in something like that, evidently.

So, I've never been in nothing like that.

But I've been around a lot of people that's been through tragedies and all.

And you could tell that he was he felt like he could, could, could have done more.

Bruce> People got trapped behind the door in the rush to get out.

Lee West, who is Shell West's brother, ♪ who is the father of our former governor, John C. West, he described it as a football game.

It was like opposing forces trying to go against each other, trying to get up the stairs.

And like I said, the panic would have set in both on the parents or whoever was outside trying to get in, and then the people inside trying to get out.

McKay> The property where on the house behind us was Shelton and Mattie West, and they were the parents of John Carl, Governor John Carl West and John Carl West was a toddler and his dad burned in the fire.

Shelton West burned in the fire trying to help others get out.

This is remarks made by Governor John C. West at the Community Center in 1995.

Narrator> It was a tragedy recognized throughout the world and compared by some to that of the Titanic of a decade earlier, except the loss in many ways was more personal because it was confined to this small rural community.

>> I think it was about five years ago, we recognized, like the 95th anniversary of the fire.

And as a firefighter, the most striking thing to me was the 1920 Seagrave fire truck that was there that day.

It was the only thing around that was there that day.

And for me, it was just I honestly, I got choked up thinking about...the lost cause ...of that...that fire engine's sole job was to put the fire out and there was nothing it could do.

And that's,... that's something, as a firefighter, that was striking to me.

♪ Carter> When they arrived, there was really nothing to do.

They had only 2 or 300 gallons of water on the apparatus.

So all I could do was help recover the bodies and take care of the wounded, the injured and, provide comfort to those who lost loved ones.

♪ Jeannette Smith McKay> Beulah is actually just behind us, and the Cleveland School is in front of us, and they took all the bodies that could not be recognized and put them in one mass grave behind Beulah Church.

There's a monument there that lists all the names of those that were burned in the fire.

♪ This church was chosen, Beulah Church was chosen for the mass grave.

Then later, the monument was put up to recognize the ones who had died.

♪ Carter> A number of years after the fire, at the Cleveland School, the community came together to establish a foundation in order to provide a marker at the site, as well as at the mass grave of the Beulah Cemetery.

♪ Seegars> Mrs. Charlotte Thompson, which was a northern lady, and she was in Camden, and she had a home here.

After the school, burned, she graciously let the school meet at her home until they finally went by bus into Camden School.

McKay> The Charlotte Thompson Community Center was built in 1954.

John Carl West wanted to recognize and put up a plaque to the members that had donated the land and, you know, and everything that it took to build the community center.

Seegars> We as a church used to promote it more.

When the...John Carl West, who was a governor, and we had Senator Holland and his family... both families of those were involved.

So as long as they were living, we had a special day every year and had dinner.

And so it just seemed like, you know, when your older people are gone, it's just not passed down to the younger ones.

♪ Rev.

Debra Anderson> It maybe a hundred years today that this fire had happened, but can you imagine, as long as we continue to keep this alive and from generation on down, we will not be here the next 100 years, But pass it on that our children would know about it.

Pass it on.

Pass it on.

Amen.

A lot have changed in those 100 years because of that fire.

Even though a lot of lives were lost, a lot of lives were sacrificed for the safety of our children to have the safety in school today.

>> The events affected the entire community and changed not just individuals, but entire families forever.

The event was of such magnitude that everything that happened in the community, when spoken about, would be known as before the fire and after the fire.

♪ I have the distinct honor to recognize the descendants of the individuals that were lost in the fire or affected by the events that happened 100 years ago.

♪ McKay> All my life I've heard about the fire, and that's what they called it, the fire.

And, it was always a basis for the older ones being afraid of fires.

Everything we did was to make sure we didn't let a candle tilt over anything, because people had a genuine fear of fire after the Cleveland School fire.

And we always told stories and, ♪ it was just one of those things you learned to respect.

I live in a 200 year old house, and I know to respect fire because it's a tinderbox.

It's made out of heart of pine.

So you were just raised with that fact around you?

Carter> Certainly the events of the fire are horrific.

The stories are human interest stories that came out of the survivors as well as the descendants of the fire, are simply fascinating and how it impacted a community, small town of Camden, it, basically set the community and the town on fire in terms of grief, the aftermath, how did families some families were completely wiped out.

And then the anger and the response to the fire in terms of legislation, codes, building codes.

It impacted the community and town as well as the state and eventually the nation.

(crackling fire) (crackling fire) (crackling fades) McKay> At the time being that most of your information came by word of mouth... it was very big news and it was written up in the, I think, also called the Chronicle, the next day.

Seegars> I think it's kind of like when people go to war, it's just not something that they want to talk about because it is it is such tragedy.

They will tell you some details, but it is not something that they can't dwell on it all the time.

or they couldn't live normal lives.

I heard about the school, Cleveland School Fire, shortly after I was married and I was about 16 years old.

My mother-in- law was Kate Dickson.

She was graduating the year that the school burned.

And, there was a play and lots of people came to the play.

Her mother came but didn't really want to, but she decided to come with them.

So the reason she was saved from the fire, there were men standing at the windows and someone threw her out.

She hit a car, which we know then that there was cars in that time and it broke her arm, but it saved her life.

Her mother was burned and two of the siblings, her sister in law and their child.

She didn't talk about the school fire a lot, about the... the horrible things that happened.

But occasionally she would tell you just some facts.

>> The reason I know most about it is, my grandmother actually survived the fire.

She was there with her siblings.

her oldest, sister was there and three other siblings.

And, she told the story for years.

And of course, when you're young, you hear the stories in the family, but you you're really not paying real close attention to them.

And it really got to me after I got into the fire service and was able to look at these things and really look at the fire and, to hear her tell the story of of how it started, you know, the play that the play there they were doing a play.

It was the last night the school was going to be open.

They were closing in the school.

And she was there to watch the play.

An oil lantern of some type fell, set the stage and some of the props on fire.

And she said what caught her attention first was the men that were trying to put the fire out with their coats.

And she said she was kind of mesmerized by that.

And, two of her siblings or three of her siblings had wandered away.

And when her older sister got to her and told her, said, look, we got to get outside.

We got to go.

We can't stay in here.

And by the time they got to the stairwell, they were unable to get in that stairwell.

So her sister dropped her out of the second floor window, and then she hung herself out of the window by her hands, as far down as she could, and dropped.

Both of those, were saved.

Both of those survived it.

She had one other sister that was actually pulled from the fire.

She was severely burned, but she survived also.

And they lost two siblings in the fire.

So most of mine has been firsthand information from my grandmother, who was there.

Resident> As soon as the fire broke out, his father gave him the car keys and said, go move the car away from the fire because he didn't want the car to get hurt.

And so fortunately, their grandfather got out.

My grandfather was older and not there at the time, but, my great uncle, Tom...got out, and apparently went back a couple times to try to get others out and eventually was so badly burned.

He survived, but died in the next day or two.

McKay> My great uncle, his son was 13, and he died in that fire.

That's Jesse Smith.

So I guess that one always stuck in my head because at the time the young man lived behind my grandparents, out... Charlotte Thompson Community School Road.

And, we always thought about how it must have been for him to have walked to the Cleveland School that afternoon and then never come home.

♪ The whole family was burned, so there was no one to go home...to ...just the horse and buggy would go and stand at the house, but there was no one to go home.

Davis> All that I know about Cleveland School fire, I learned from my mother, who was present, at the time of the fire.

My mother was eight years old at the time.

She was the only one of the family that was able to escape.

And her...her mother, her brother, Hamilton, and... and sister Dorothy perished in the fire.

♪ Seegars> I brought some pictures of my mother in law's mother and sister and brother.

They were burned and the Cleveland fired where their graves are right here where we're at now.

And also this is a picture of the three teachers and one of the students that was there, Ms. Bruce, Ms. Stevens and Ms. Passer.

They were the teachers when the school burnt.

And this is Ms. Bruce sitting on Mount Olivet steps with my mother in law's father.

And this was sometime after the fire.

I don't know how many years, but she... she married Mr. Bruce out of our community.

>> When I first heard about the, Cleveland School fire, it was always a part of my grandmother's story, her history.

But I especially remember being in third grade when all of us South Carolinians do South Carolina history.

And it'd be in the history books in our South... when we studied in third grade and thinking, "Oh yeah, that was..." I didn't realize how significant it was.

I knew my mother, my grandmother, grand gran, was in the fire, and I knew the story for her... her mother and brother and sister perished in the fire.

And, but I really didn't understand the magnitude of it until third grade studying South Carolina history.

I think the fire affected my grandmother deeply as as anyone would imagine.

I knew we had this family heirloom, this blanket that she had, and I knew that blanket was very, very important to her.

And I remember, it being in her home and then being in our home.

And I remember that it was very special.

I would assume there's lots of buggies outside the way that they got to the school that evening for this program, and she went to the...and got the blanket off of the off of her buggy that they used and left on, on, on there and wrapped herself and she put around her, around her shoulders and walked down the road dazed and confused when she left the fire, when her...watching her mother and brother and sister dying in that fire.

And as the story goes, she stopped at a familiar family's home, a home that she... that she knew the people there.

She was kind of taken into the home and wrapped in that... in this blanket.

So I know it was something that she carried for a long time.

And... ♪ 1923 Davis> 1923, Vergnolle> I would assume this would have been taken before the fire.

I wouldn't see where a portrait like this would have been taken, Davis> Right.

Vergnolle> after the fire.

Davis> I think so too.

Vergnolle> A beautiful little dress, this little innocent little face.

But this is the girl that fought her way out.

And my father always said at the anniversary of the, of the fire, she... she would become very sad.

And it'd be a day of great sadness for her on that anniversary.

♪ Seegars> The community came together and helped others.

It was planning time.

So they helped get their crops planted and I'm sure there was a lot of support from the ones that were left.

Carter> There are stories of a teenage son having to take care of his siblings because the parents, perished in the fire.

Neighbors had to come together to harvest the crops and there was sadness over that community for many, many years.

And, of course, we didn't know anything about behavioral help and counseling and whatever back then, but, you can only imagine the, sadness that occurred throughout that community and the Camden area, in itself.

Seegars> I think it's important that we present this to our children when they come along, because then they need to know the tragedies that happened.

These people were so courageous, you know, afterwards to... to keep their lives normal.

And that is a good example for our children.

Not, not only that, the laws were changed, but the people themselves just rallied around.

It was not always talked about, but it took a lot of faith.

It took a lot of courage to work through these years.

But their lives were very full and very useful.

Vergnolle> I'm so glad and I learned so much from that presentation and learned about this documentary there, and realized how important it is to keep telling these stories, because how it was, they were so impactful.

We need to keep telling these stories and sharing them and making sure that my children know these stories and are proud of what their great grandmother did.

♪ Carter> Immediately after the fire, days after the fire, the legislators from around the state, the governor, the superintendent of education, there was an outcry for change and improvements.

in these rural schools, particularly and various bills were proposed and, but it came too late for the Cleveland School.

And for years South Carolina was in the top five in the nation per capita of fire deaths.

Several years we were number one.

We have solutions, but the building officials, the contractors often fight us.

And of course, the legislature is, it often falls on deaf ears.

>> The US Fire Administration was born out of a report called America Burning.

That report was released by the US government in 1973.

Based on that report, legislation was passed called the Fire Prevention and Control Legislation that contained authorization for the United States Fire Administration.

Everything we have, every innovation, every movement, every standard, every code has come out of a tragedy.

The problem is it doesn't come easy because people forget far too soon.

And so, we, in the fire service have to continuously fight.

We had to continuously remind what happened.

We stand with our communities who've been impacted to tell the stories.

These stories are vital to us being able to get the change, to be able to put in place risk reduction activity, to put in place our codes and standards and build environment that can be fire safe.

And yet today we still have these tragedies.

Seven people a day die from fire in this nation, seven a day.

And by far it is people that are poor and people of color, our vulnerable populations, our children, our elderly, who are most impacted by the scourge of fire.

America is still burning.

I've just been given, by... by President Biden signing it to law a bill that authorizes the United States Fire Administration to have investigation authority around fire safety.

And what that law says is that the fire administrator can go in after a major fire where we've had large loss of life or high impact, a remarkable fire, and figure out what fire safety issues were not present.

In other words, how did a building fail long before firefighters arrived to rescue people?

How did that building that should have been fire safe... ♪ (crackling fire) ♪ ♪ Chris Jones> My responsibilities and duties here is involved with community risk reduction.

Our firefighters along with myself, we go out and educate people about fire risk, fire dangers.

One key risk and one big risk that Kershaw County faced prior to 1923 was fire codes.

In 2019, I attended a fire and life safety education conference in Camden, South Carolina, and I began learning about the Cleveland School fire and learning about other school fires that occurred in Kershaw County.

Along the way, there were several other school fires.

That piqued my interest, and I began researching Cleveland School along with other school fires.

So far, I've located at least four other fires that occurred in Kershaw County that were school related.

As a fire investigator, we like to use an exemplar, which means another one that's like it.

If we had a fire at a structure, we maybe find one next door, something like that to use as an exemplar.

So...

I located a school in Newberry.

It's called the Jolly Street School, and it looks very similar to Cleveland.

There may be some slight differences, but we're going up, in a few days to go up and look at it and see how the codes then were compared to they are now.

Chief Jonathan Jones> We're always learning from data.

So, one of the responsibilities of the state Fire Marshal's Office is we research every single fire fatality to really ask the questions beyond the basic incident report and beyond the fire investigation.

We, of course, want to know what led to the fire, but we also want to study the human behaviors that led to the fire fatality.

Were they alerted?

Was there a presence of smoke alarms?

Were...were they trying to escape?

Were they even, aware that there was a fire?

Were they incapacitated in some way?

Those are all things that we're always learning.

And what...what really allows us to have a targeted approach to fire prevention messaging, a community risk reduction messaging, rather than kind of a shotgun approach.

It's a broad spectrum.

Our fire fatality research let's... let's us drill down to the specific fire fatalities that are occurring in specific jurisdictions, and then arm those local fire departments with actionable intelligence that is relative to their fire problem... problem at the local level.

Chief Gardner> So I'm going to try to roll this.

And, I want you to just pay attention to how quickly... the fire and the smoke... progresses and the...the reality of what little bit of a time that you have to escape.

It's literally seconds makes the difference.

Band starts now with the pyrotechnics... (background concert music) He's going to pan around, and when he comes back, you'll see that the stage is on fire.

(background concert music) Now, when he comes back would be the first time... because the pyrotechnics are out, now you see, there's a fire.

(music continues) Watch his actions!

It's only a second or two, he starts moving toward the exit.

Now he's moving out.

Right now.

He's not running, but he's moving purposefully to the exit.

(concert music continues) Most of the people don't realize something's going wrong.

(indiscernible yelling) Now they are.

♪ And you can see he's a little paused up.

There's a crowd behind him, but he's continuing to move.

Now, you hear the fire alarm going off?

♪ And you can tell he's moving... toward the exit, main exit.

(indiscernible yelling) He's kind of in the vestibule, the entrance way.

(indiscernible yelling) You can see the people panicking.

Now, he's going through the main doors, front doors.

He is now outside.

Look at the smoke.

(smoke alarm ringing) That's one minute.

Look at that... you see the smoke barreling out of this place?

♪ Chief Gardner> We'd been looking for maybe a building that was similar to the Cleveland School, so that we could look at it.

I mean, everything we read about the building, it's always good to put your eyes on something that was very, very similar.

Oh, yeah.

Jones> Yeah.

This looks...Jon this looks similar to Cleveland.

No worries.

Stairs over here to check out.

Check out the stairs.

They do look a little narrow.

Yeah, let's, let's check it out and see how wide they are.

38 and 38.

Yeah, that is a little narrow compared to today's standards.

>> Yep.

It'd be 48 today.

>> Yeah.

>> Let's look at Cleveland.

What was...was that 30?

>> 30 inches.

>> 30 inches in Cleveland.

Oh, wow!

That would be about right, right there.

>> Yeah >> That'd be about the width.

So, if you and I, we got in a straight line >> Couldn't pass side by side down these stairs.

>> We definitely couldn't >> No.

Now, how about... >> Let's see.

You got that part.

How far 48 would put us?

>> 48 would be right there.

>> Yeah.

>> What do you think?

>> Wow!

What a difference that makes.

>> Yep.

Both you and I can walk down the stairs side by side like that.

>> Plenty of room.

>> About right there.

>> Could you imagine being at the top of these stairs and trying to get all those folks in a 30 inch stairwell trying to get down?

>> And then Cleveland only had the one stairwell.

>> That's right.

>> So there's only one way out.

♪ So if the stairway was jammed all the way out, through this window.

Jumping out of the second floor window.

Yeah, I can imagine grandma and her sister facing that stairwell, seeing it blocked and knowing that out this window or that...one of the windows was the only way out.

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

Could you imagine?

Let's look down here and look how far it is.

>> Oh wow!

>> Look how far that is right there.

You know, they're, they're jumping 15.

This is what, 15, 20 ft down?

>> I would say so, yeah.

>> Luckily, here we have a porch similar to what Cleveland had.

It had a porch on the front, a lot of a lot of people jumped to the porch, then fell, Fell down to the ground.

That's somewhat of a less fall, but it's still- >> -still a good ways down.

>> This is going to cause major injuries to a lot of children and adults from falling from this height.

>> Sure it is.

That was... was tragic.

>> Yes.

First off, with this being a two story school, there's only one exit out.

There's only one stairwell that goes down to the first floor.

New codes for today will require a minimum of two exits from the second story.

So you'd have a minimum of two.

Right now, if we had a fire in this school, if the stairwell was blocked, there would be no way out except for the windows.

Next thing is, there's no exit signs illuminated.

Today's codes require for exercise to be illuminated and they'd have to have a battery backup.

If something happens and electricity goes off, then you're able to see the way out.

There may be markings on the floor.

There may be markings in the stairwell.

The stairways have to be illuminated as well, so you can see them, just like when a movie theater, if you go to a movie theater, they have the lines on the aisles that are illuminated.

Same thing here with the stairwells, you'd have to have some type of illumination.

Schools that were built in the days of Jolly Street, which is 1915, and like Cleveland in 1923 or those built in 1909, those codes didn't require any of that.

This school also has no fire alarm system.

It only has the one exit door out the front.

It does have a second exit door on the back.

So, that's much better than Cleveland.

Cleveland only had one exit, period.

At Cleveland, you went down the stairs, the single stairwell, you hung a right.

You went down another little steps, set of stairs.

You had to hang a left and then go out and hang a right.

So you had to do about four turns.

This school here at Jolly Street, it is a direct way out.

So at least that is a direct path of egress as you come down the stairwell, you can go straight out the front door.

Here the door does swing outward, which is great.

At Cleveland, the door swung inward so as you have a crowd of people coming and rushing to the doors, they would have swung inward.

So it could have... they could have been blocked.

Here at Jolly Street, the exit doors don't have any panic hardware.

You're required by code to have at least one door with panic hardware, which is a push bar.

So you don't have to worry about unlocking it with a key or trying to do something extra to get out.

You just push the bar and the door opens.

It should open outward to get out.

This building here at Jolly Street does not have any kind of fire sprinklers, any kind of fire protection, any kind of fire alarm systems, period.

Same as Cleveland.

It didn't have any of those features.

Here at Jolly Street, and even that Cleveland, these rooms are very small.

They're...they're not designed to hold the amount of people that would have been there that night.

Estimates are that there was up to 300 people at Cleveland that night on the second floor, in the auditorium.

So having 300 people in that small room, that was an auditorium packed with all those people, you'd have people lined up along the walls.

Every seat would have been filled.

You maybe would have had people sitting in the aisle ways.

And that's not good, because if you have a blocked aisle way, you're already behind the eight ball.

You're already got that... you're already losing your way out.

So if you allow seats to be set up in aisle ways, that's against today's fire codes altogether.

You have to have a clear exit, clear aisle way, clear way out, all the way out till you get outside.

Cleveland didn't have that.

You know, I can imagine that night they were jam packed with that one way out.

That was it.

Only had one way out, down that 30 inch stair and that's single file.

There's no way to get more than one person at a time down that stair.

Seegars> We did have a fire previous to this in Kershaw County, and the children were in school when it happened, but because the teachers had did fire drills with them, every child got out and no one was hurt.

So that shows you how important the school drills are.

>> I wish I could say it's not possible here in America again, but it is.

We're just one day and one fire away from another tragedy, just like the Cleveland School fire.

And just like the Station nightclub, because there's thousands and thousands of those buildings that still exist in this country with inadequate means of egress, with synthetic material in places that it shouldn't be.

It's like the code addresses all the concerns and tragedies of the past.

It's just unfortunately, they're not adopted or not enforced.

Finkle> I think one of the biggest takeaways that I had from this tragedy is just how preventable it was, but also how much it impacted schools today.

Students are able to go to school, especially in this state, knowing that they're protected from a fire or a tragedy like this happening again.

So the fire, impacted or changed today's safety practices because teaching... Our teachers, staff, personnel and even students have things that they have to follow.

We do fire drills and there's fire protocol in place.

Not only that, but you see doors that swing outwards in some classrooms.

There are exit signs.

There's capacity guidelines in place to ensure not only the students safety, but anybody else in (the) school building.

And I think that... that really is a direct impact of the Cleveland School fire.

Matthew Harder> I was familiar with the Cleveland School fire, but not on the level of what Ava was able to put together.

And so she actually taught me some things, and so I was thankful for that.

And, you know, we've had fire drills and things like that since then.

It makes that connection for me to think about all the hard work that she put together and, and how, you know that... that horrible tragedy has impacted something that I do on a daily basis, and things that I have to take into consideration, with myself for, you know, making sure that my students are following protocols to making sure that, you know, we as a school are doing things in the best way to keep our students safe and coworkers safe.

And, it just gives you a better appreciation for the systems that we now have in place of how far we've come and how, you know, unfortunately, sometimes it takes a tragedy such as this to, you know, come up with ways to prevent this from happening again in the future.

Pritchett> I learned at the Cleveland School anniversary event that there was a legislator who had said, "We don't need those codes.

"That fire's not going to happen here."

And you know what, they believed that.

We had a similar, situation in the last decade where, Chattanooga, Tennessee, was adopting the code that required retrofit of fire sprinklers in bars and nightclubs.

Well, everyone filed in, that owned the bar and nightclub and all of their attorneys and lawyers, and they said it cost too much.

We don't need it.

And we brought an advocate, a survivor of the Station nightclub fire, where not 100 people died in 2003.

It was a direct quote from a council member that said to that survivor, "Well, that happened in Rhode Island.

"That's not going to happen in Tennessee."

And Rob Feeney, as a survivor said, "No, you're wrong.

You cannot predict this."

And then he...he listed all of the historical fires and the lives lost and... and really like it was a mic drop moment, because you could feel the energy in that city council chamber.

And the legislation did pass by one vote.

And the council member who changed his vote came up to Rob afterwards, and he said, "Thank you for being here.

"You changed my mind."

Carter> Today, the South Carolina State Firefighters Association is very active, in monitoring legislation that may impact firefighters across the state, as well as supporting legislation that may, enhance fire safety for the public, certainly codes enforcement.

We're always battling issues that may weaken the codes, the building codes, the fire codes in our state.

So we monitor that.

And each year, it's our pleasure to... have what we call Legislative Day on the grounds of the State House.

We invite, all of the legislators, their staff, to join us for lunch, where we have an opportunity to share our concerns and legislation that may be, on their agendas to discuss and amend.

Chief John Bowers> A lot of time, our legislators, when issues come up, they don't know how to stand on particular issues as it involves emergency services, and sometimes they seek out, our advice on particular issues.

And of course, we also, from time to time, go to our legislators and talk to them about things that are important to us, as a fire service, in South Carolina.

We don't work for them, specifically.

We all work for municipal governments or county governments There's special... purpose districts.

We are an arm of state government.

And, a lot of times, that's why we come to the state government and ask for support in various things, because we're out there doing the work that they want us to do for the citizens that they represent.

We do it in a different way, but it's a good partnership.

Pritchett> A building official took the time to sit down with me, and he had all of his stacks of code books, and they're huge.

And there's volume upon volume.

And he patted, he patted that...that stack of books.

And he said, "Never let anyone tell you "that codes aren't important."

Now, I embrace that concept because I love helping people understand by telling stories.

So to me, the Cleveland School fire, not only is it fascinating, but it's... it is such an important part because even though lives were lost and... and we focus on that tragedy, good came out of it, because we were able to use that as an example to share with the code agencies and organizations that...that write the code.

And so they literally went to work writing codes to address many of the things that did cost lives, that tragic day in South Carolina.

Moore-Merrell> You know, I think the biggest goal would be to have this historic Cleveland School fire of 1923 be the last.

Let that be your last threshold.

Let's not repeat that.

Let's not have another fire.

That's the goal.

It's a goal across the nation.

It's a goal that we must all strive for.

We're not done yet, but let's not have another tragedy.

Let's take forward the lessons we've already learned, not have them happen again, and say we didn't learn from the last one.

Carter> People have gotten beyond the fire, but I think it is still, a significant event in the history of that town and that community that hopefully no other communities have to experience.

Chief Jones> The width of stairways, all these things that contributed ultimately, to the loss of life there at the Cleveland School, fire resistive construction, and... and interior finishes, fire suppression systems, like sprinkler systems, fire alarm and detection systems, all of these things, school fire drills, crowd management, and in turn, when we have large assemblies of people and those sorts of things.

So those are all things that in one way or another came out of the Cleveland School fire and other events like it.

♪ (crackling fire) (crackling fades) Moore-Merrell> It's a challenge economically.

It is a challenge for our people that it's still affecting our vulnerable populations the most.

And so, like the many other stories that we've had through time, we've got the night... the Station Nightclub fire, where we lost hundreds.

We have the Bronx fire.

As I've mentioned, just last year, 17 people died, not from the fire itself, but from the smoke inhalation because the building failed.

The Philadelphia fire, just four days prior to that in 2022, where 12 people were living in a public housing arena that had been retrofitted because they couldn't afford fire safe housing.

We have to come to a point in our nation where we recognize fire as a threat and that safe and affordable housing is not mutually exclusive.

We have to have our voices continue to carry the story forward, for those who cannot.

So what happened and what we saw, even in 1923 to now, the challenge remains.

♪ I think our schools are safer.

I believe that our schools and the codes and standards that have evolved around our schools absolutely have changed.

We've had great innovation in that space and perhaps attributed to the Cleveland School fire.

I'd like to think that... that was the evolution for our school safety.

♪ ♪ dramatic music ♪ ♪ ♪ music continues ♪ ♪ ♪ music continues ♪ ♪ ♪ music continues ♪ ♪ ♪ music fades ♪