Station Nightclub families react to Brazil club fire - ABC6 - Providence, RI and New Bedford, MA News, Weather

Station Nightclub families react to Brazil club fire

By: ABC6 News Staff

Reporting by: Andrea Medeiros

amedeiros@abc6.com

245 people are dead in Brazil and another 200 are injured. A nightclub was packed with college students when the fire broke out. A stage effect that was part of the entertainment reportedly started the fire at the Santa Maria club.

This fire is painfully similar to the Station Nightclub fire that killed 100 people in West Warwick nearly 10 years ago. It's bringing back bad memories for locals who lost loved ones.

"If they hadn't set off the pyrotechnics than we wouldn't be having this conversation," said Gina Russo of the Station Fire Memorial Foundation.

Russo remembers when she was listening to Great White play, the night she survived, and lost her fiance in the fire.

"When we had 100 people die and 200 people seriously maimed and injured, nobody got the message. Everybody thinks it's never going to happen where they are," said Russo.

David Kane's son, Nick, was the youngest station fire victim. His 28th birthday would have been this week. Kane is left wondering when club owners will learn their lesson.

A year after the station fire nearly a hundred people were killed in a club fire in Argentina. Then years later a similar situation in Bangkok and then Peru.

"The stories are different and yet all the same. It's all very similar. Unfortunately, because it's so similar you realize nobody gets the message," said Kane.

Here in Rhode Island there have been some changes to the fire code. Sprinklers are now required in nightclubs and bars that hold a hundred or more people. Pyrotechnics have been banned.