Three Firemen Died When Air Tanks Ran Dry Investigtors Unsure How Long They Lived After Floor Collapsed

Three firefighters killed in an arson fire this month suffocated when their air tanks ran dry, and the fourth died from smoke inhalation, officials said Monday.

The autopsy results were made public three days after officials declared the Jan. 5 fire at a food-processing warehouse was arson. The deaths of Lts. Walter Kilgore and Gregory Shoemaker and firefighters James T. Brown and Randall Terlicker are being investigated as murders.

They died after the main floor collapsed beneath them at the Mary Pang’s Food Products building near the Kingdome.

Kilgore, Terlicker and Brown died as a result of “asphyxia due to oxygen depletion” in the breathing apparatus they wore, King County Medical Examiner Dr. Donald Reay told a news conference.

“There is evidence that they had motion and movement after they fell through the floor,” he said, although it was impossible to say exactly how long they might have survived.

Shoemaker apparently lost his helmet and breathing mask in the fall and was exposed immediately to a “lethal environment” of gases and temperatures ranging from 1,200 to 1,400 degrees, Reay said.

The men’s bodies showed no disabling injuries, such as broken bones, from the fall, Reay said. They did suffer burns, but medical investigators concluded those occurred after the men died, he said.

Kilgore, Brown and Terlicker apparently were conscious and moving after the fall, judging by clues such as the activation of emergency alarms they carried and, in one case, the fact that one victim was found some distance from a glove he had been wearing, Reay said.

Although their protective gear worked well, Reay said, they most likely suffered some incapacity from the intense heat. He could not, however, say to what degree they were disabled by the heat before their air ran out.

Once the air ran out, the end would have come fairly quickly, he said, comparing it to a pilot who loses oxygen at high altitude.

“It’s almost a lack of awareness that starts to develop,” he said. “You fumble; you think you’re doing things fine, but you’re not.”

Tissue samples have been preserved in case they are needed by police in their criminal investigation, such as testing for trace chemicals that weren’t part of autopsy tests, he said.