Stardust fire could have started unnoticed in hot press, coroner’s court hears

The fire that swept through the Stardust nightclub in 1981, killing 48 people, could have started in the hot press in the main bar without being noticed by people present in the bar, Dublin coroner’s court heard on Tuesday.

Dr Will Hutchinson, forensic scientist and fire investigator, was asked whether it was possible that a fire could have been developing in the hot press without being smelled, heard, seen or felt by staff who were cashing up and cleaning glasses at the time, after the bar closed at 1am.

The inquests into the deaths of 48 people, aged 16-27, as a result of the fire at the Artane ballroom in the early hours of February 14th, 1981, have heard the hot press in the bar had an electrical fault and was a “likely” location for the start of the blaze, sometime before it was first observed inside the venue, at about 1.40am.

It was first seen inside on a bank of seats at the back of the alcove, on the other side of the wall of the main bar.

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Patricia Dillon, SC for Dublin City Council, asked Dr Hutchinson when the fire would have started in the hot press. She asked too, given that staff were in the bar from 10pm on February 13th until the alarm was first raised after 1.30am on February 14th, how no one noticed it developing in the hot press cupboard.

The inquests heard the hot press was in an elevated position on a corner wall behind the bar.

“The fire could still develop at an early stage without being noticed,” said Dr Hutchinson. “Sometimes it’s possible to witness the start of a fire... whether it’s heat, or smell of smoke, or hearing noise,” he said.

“But in this particular case where you have a cabinet, the fire is contained. If the fire started in the cabinet, then the fire would channel upwards like a chimney into the ceiling void.

“So the heat, the smoke would be gone. It would develop, certainly for a few minutes without making any sound and there’s also the sound of the music as well... So I believe the fire could still develop at an early stage without being noticed.”

It would be “very difficult” to say exactly when it would have started in the hot press. Noting there were a number of 999 calls reporting the fire, logged at 1.42am-1.44am, Dr Hutchison said: “If we use the fixed times of the calls to the fire service ... I can say at that time the fire was already observed as being present in the west alcove and, therefore, at some time before that it originated elsewhere.

“I am suggesting it started in the hot press and then spread from there up into the ceiling void directly above the west alcove, to where it’s then transitioned through to the west alcove where it’s observed. But I can’t give you a fixed time frame,” he added.

Later, the jury asked about the “sudden increase in toxic gases” found during a simulation of the outbreak of the fire in the west alcove conducted in 1981 by the Fire Research Station in England. It found 1½ minutes after the start of the fire in a test rig, built to replicate the west alcove’s conditions, conditions were hazardous to life, within that rig.

As to whether the gases, as they spread over the ballroom, would have been dangerous, the court heard the researchers reported, such was their concentration, “even a dilution of the gases found at nose level, by 10 times... would still have given an atmosphere potentially dangerous to life from carbon monoxide”.

The inquests continue.

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