The 1978 Holiday Inn fire broke out at a Holiday Inn hotel located at 1525 West Ridge Road in the town of Greece, New York, United States, on November 26, 1978. The fire was considered notable enough by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and the Center for Fire Research to document the fire in their 1979 publications. In the end, ten people were killed and 34 injured; seven of the fatalities were Canadian nationals. In 2008, the NFPA listed the 1978 Holiday Inn fire as one of only three dozen or so fires which killed ten or more people in the U.S. between 1934 and 2006.
Initially, the Greece Police Department did not consider the fire suspicious. Questions arose about whether or not the fire alarms could be heard in the lobby of the hotel when firefighters arrived. While hotel officials said the alarms were functioning, firefighters first at the scene said they were unable to hear the bells. Although the building met existing fire codes, it lacked some fire prevention equipment including smoke detectors and a sprinkler system. Additionally, the fire alarm system was not connected to the fire department or any other security agency, and there was only one vertical firewall between the two wings. The alarm system consisted only of one bell in the middle of each of the two wings. John Stickevers, a New York City fire investigator brought in to assist with the investigation, discovered that an uncommon, highly flammable liquid accelerant was used to start the fire inside a storage cupboard under the first floor stairwell. The fire was officially ruled as an arson attack, but no one was ever charged with this crime and the case remains open today.
In early 2011, police launched the most intensive investigation of the fire in the previous thirty years. On November 26, 2014, police announced that they have identified a suspect for the first time, 36 years after the fire. In 2018, it was reported that the investigation had been narrowed down to two suspects but that the investigation had stalled over disagreements between Greece Police and the Monroe County District Attorney on which suspect is responsible and over proof of arson.
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