The Glass Inferno

CHAPTER 24

Late Evening

In the storeroom, the concrete ceiling directly above the shelf of solvents begins to spall and flake away. Dust gathered on the ventilator grill bursts into smoky flame, paint on the grill bubbles and burns, the thin metal grill itself slowly twists and warps in the heat. Behind it, the plastic heating duct begins to burn, adding more smoke to the black clouds pushing past loosely fitting smoke dampers into the labyrinth of ducts to other floors.

Outside, in the corridor, the fire licks at the wooden framing around office doors and gouges at the acoustical tile of the false ceiling’ The tile contains a large percentage of asbestos fiber and would ordinarily be considered fire resistant, but the superheated air near the ceiling is well past the 600-degree mark. The fire races along the narrow space between the false ceiling and the floor above.

Where ductwork penetrates the concrete fire ceiling, the fire rages and tears at the plaster sealing the gap around the duct. Some of the patching material chars ,and bursts into flame. Concrete patches slowly spall away, plaster calcines and flakes. In a number of places, no attempt at all was made to patch the hole and the fire crawls up into telephone junction rooms and computer terminal assemblies on the floor above, to feast on smears of grease and chew at the insulation on lashed bundles of wiring.

All the drums and cans have now ruptured in the storeroom; all the bottles have burst, and the flood of flaming liquid has flowed around flaming debris under the storeroom door and down the hall, oozing under the doors of other offices. The tide rolls through the outer display room of Today’s Interiors and laps at the bolts of upholstery material, the samples of hanging draperies, and the expensive, delicate furniture. It scorches its way into the storeroom, quickly devouring the aisles of upholstery and drapery goods. The legs of the Herman Miller desk char, then flame; the wood-grained formica top blackens, bubbles, and becomes a solid sheet of fire. The ledgers and stacks of unpaid bills puff into small balls of flame that float briefly in the air before turning into bits of black ash, swirling toward the ceiling.

The paint on the adding machine browns and blackens; the plastic parts soon blaze, and the metal keys turn red, then white.

The fire loading of Today’s Interiors is heavy and in some parts of the shop, particularly above the bales of polyurethane foam used for upholstery, the temperature of the air approaches 1,000 degrees.

In the hall outside, the beast is fast outgrowing its adolescence and is hungrily searching for more food.