By Peter St. Onge
The News & Observer
Copyright 2007 The News and Observer

CHARLESTON, S.C. — It began with an early evening 911 call, urgent but not unusual. A furniture store on U.S. 17 was on fire. An employee might be inside.

It ended nine hours later, with firefighters' families huddled nearby, praying and waiting until, finally, someone began to call names.

The news was grim. Nine firefighters were killed after fire collapsed the roof at Sofa Super Store, a former Piggly Wiggly on this busy retail highway. The deaths are the worst loss of firefighters since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The dead, who included three captains, had more than a century of combined experience.

"I lost nine of my best friends," Fire Chief Rusty Thomas said Tuesday, choking back tears.

The cause of the Monday fire is under investigation, but officials said arson is not suspected. Assistant chief Larry Garvin said said the store had no sprinklers but apparently had been exempted from stricter building codes dating back to the 1990s.

Thomas said sprinklers likely would have slowed the fire, but he wouldn't speculate whether they would have saved lives.

Nor would he answer many questions about the blaze, and officials were unclear on the cause or the exact chain of events, including when the roof collapsed or whether it caused the deaths.

But, Thomas said, there was no indication his firefighters did anything wrong.

"They did exactly what they were trained to do," he said.

Throughout the day, firefighters returned to the site to read notes left at the store with bouquets and wreaths. Some wept. Behind them, officials from the S.C. Law Enforcement Division and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms began to piece together what had happened.

Charleston fire Capt. Brian Kropp stood outside the store. He had been off-duty Monday, but he came to the scene anyway. He and his team pulled the last two bodies from the building.

"You're just totally numb," he said. "I'm still numb. It's going to take days for this to sink in."

The fire's progress
About 6:45 p.m., neighbor Georgie Craven saw smoke at Sofa Super Store. She dialed 911 and was told firemen were on the way. She and her daughter, Sarah Earle, thought their house, just three homes away from the store, might be in danger.

Within minutes, the fire grew.

Charleston Mayor Joe Riley knew the blaze was bad when he received the call at about 7 p.m. Fire Chief Rusty Thomas never contacted him unless it was a big one. At about the same time, Thomas said, he received an emergency call reporting at least one person trapped inside the store.

The mayor rushed to the inferno, where he found the store in flames and surrounded by firefighters. Some were already inside looking for anyone trapped.

Firefighters knew the building from past fire safety visits, Thomas said. "They knew the whole layout. They were in there all the time."

Nearby, Arthur Grant had just gotten off work and was driving home. He noticed the dark sky, which he thought at first was an approaching rain storm. It was smoke.

He thought of his father, James Drayton, a 32-year fire department veteran. He came to an intersection about a mile from the store. A left turn would have taken him past the fire. A right would take him home.

He turned right. Fire trucks raced past in the opposite direction.

"I said to myself, 'I hope my daddy's not working."'

'It was raging'
At the fire, one employee had been able to escape, although it is unclear if he had fled the building or was rescued.

But near 8 p.m., word spread that at least one firefighter was unaccounted for. "It got real quiet, real quick," said Don Lundy, Charleston EMS director.

Firefighters continued to look inside for workers while battling the blaze. "They were fighting it from the top and around the sides. It was extremely intense and it was raging," Riley said.

Then the roof collapsed.

At 9 p.m., Arthur Grant's sister called, crying. His father's station had answered the call to the fire. James Drayton was one of the firefighters who hadn't been found.

Grant and his wife got in the car and drove to the scene, but the highway had been blocked. They told authorities they were relatives of a missing firefighter, and sheriff's deputies escorted them to Fire Station 11, about a half-mile away. There, they joined about 30 others to wait.

A police chaplain, Jimmy Gallant, gathered Grant's family into a circle, he recalled. Other families joined, holding hands and praying.

The men were gone
Near midnight, when the fire was brought under control, it was clear the men were gone.

Riley told The New York Times that most of them were killed when a large set of shelves collapsed in the rear portion of the building.

Charleston County Coroner Rae Wooten said the official causes of death are still unknown. The victims were not in just one part of the store, she said, but spread throughout the building. Seven others would suffer from smoke inhalation and other injuries and are recovering, the mayor said.

After midnight Monday, firefighters went back into the smoldering building to get the bodies. As each man was found and identified, members of his company, like pallbearers, were called to carry him out. Thomas asked the Rev. Rob Dewey of the Coastal Crisis Chaplaincy to say a prayer over the bodies, which were wrapped with American flags.

Two lines formed of police officers and firefighters from across the Low Country who responded to the fire. At one point, about 80 people stood on both sides of the line, said Dewey. They saluted as the bodies passed.

About 3:30 a.m., at Fire Station 11, officials started calling relatives in one by one. A fire captain greeted Arthur Grant, then patted him on the shoulder. The captain was a friend of James Drayton.

"Your father was one of the firefighters we found dead," he said.

Grant thought back about Father's Day, how he called and left his dad a message but did not hear back. He wasn't sure why. Now the son would never know.

HOW TO HELP:
The city of Charleston, S.C., has created a fund for the families of the nine firefighters killed Monday. Checks should be made out to the "Families of Fallen Firemen Fund" and mailed to:

City of Charleston
Fireman's Fund
P.O. Box 304
Charleston, S.C. 29402