Fire: Trapped on the 37th Floor (1991 TV Movie) User Reviews (6)

Real Life Towering Inferno...Sort Of

[waynewass427 · 7/10 · 24 March 2017]

I have done much research into the real fire portrayed in this made-for-television screenplay.

While names have been changed, and some dramatic license has been taken to enhance the movie, I can tell you that much of this film is based on the real-life events of May 4-5, 1988.

Security personnel ignored several smoke alarm warnings, re-setting the alarms. This caused a 15 minute delay in reporting the fire to LAFD.

It was people on the street, seeing the fire leaping up from the windows, that called 9-1-1.

The first-arriving fire department unit was a battalion chief. Upon seeing fire burning on the outside of the windows, he immediately called for 20 more fire trucks (about 70 more firefighters) and five more battalion chiefs.

In reality, the sprinkler system contractors had installed about 90% of the system, up to about the 58th floor out of the 62 floors. The sprinkler system was already completed on the floors that burned (12 thru 16). However, the contractor had the water valves turned off, awaiting the complete installation of the system before turning on all the water flow valves.

Also, the fire pumps for the firefighter's water hose supply (standpipes) had been turned off earlier that night, unbeknownst to the fire department.

It wasn't until sometime later that the sprinkler contractor's foreman told the Incident Commander that the pumps were off.

Once the pumps were turned back on, water pressure in some of the hoses was so powerful, some of the hoses burst open, and others were too hard for the firemen to control.

In the end, it took nearly 400 fire department personnel three and a half hours before they were able to extinguish the fire.

At one point, the fire department was using 20 hoses from the four stairwells. In all, they used over half a million gallons of water.

An after incident investigation by the fire department, insurance investigators, and national engineering firms determined that "unusually good application of fire proofing material on the steel support columns helped prevent a possible collapse of the top 50 floors onto the street".

The logistical problems (carrying all of the hoses, air bottles, etc up 10 flights of stairs, and thousands of gallons of water a minute pouring down the stairwells, as well as poor radio communications made the firefighters jobs all the more difficult.

In spite of all the things that went wrong that night, the LAFD did an extraordinary job in putting out the fire and preventing further loss of life.

Very good, except.....

[wkozak221 · 6/10 · 22 April 2021]

This a well done tv movie. Well written, good cast. It keeps you engaged throughout. The only problem I have is: why is Michael Beach's name listed first? This was made in 1991. Lee Majors and Peter Scolari were well known at that time.

"This Is One We're Gonna Remember!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 13 October 2022]

With a handful of people working late in an office tower, the building's water supply is shut off for maintenance, including the sprinkler system. In addition, the fire alarm system has been experiencing a lot of false alarms, making them easy to disregard.

What could possibly go wrong?

FIRE: TRAPPED ON THE 37TH FLOOR is pretty much explained by its title. Once the fire is finally discovered, the mood shifts from nonchalance to full-on panic. Based on actual events, the story is, of course, fleshed out with human tragedy and triumph. As made-for-TV disaster films go, this one is pretty good. Lisa Hartman plays one of those trapped high above, while Lee Majors is the Deputy Fire Chief on the scene.

For such a moderately-budgeted production, the fire itself is impressive. It actually seems like a building is being consumed by it. The firefighters also come across as realistic. Majors plays his role with solemn command.

Fans of THE TOWERING INFERNO should enjoy this...

Typical TV movie

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 20 December 2021]

A typical TV movie disaster flick that doesn't really have the budget to do the subject matter justice. Sure, the fiery scenes are fun in and of themselves, but the rest is merely middling and slightly soap opera-ish as is the case with so many TV movies of the 1990s. Lee Majors is the dependable fire chief but the rest of the cast were unknown to me.

Reliving The First Interstate Bank Fire

[virek213 · 8/10 · 19 January 2012]

The fear of being trapped in a high-rise building fire is one that became a cinematic fear to be reckoned with in 1974 when producer Irwin Allen's terrifying disaster epic THE TOWERING INFERNO was unleashed on an unsuspecting public. One such TOWERING INFERNO-type event occurred in Los Angeles on May 4, 1988, when a fire of unknown origin (but believed to have been electrical in nature) sparked on the 12th floor of the First Interstate Bank Tower in the city's downtown section that evening. It was the worst high-rise blaze in the city's history, made so by the fact that the sprinkler system that would have doused the fire was not yet fully operational. Five floors of the building (floors 12-16) were gutted, causing $50 million dollars in damage. Forty people were injured in the incident, and a maintenance worker in the building was killed when the elevator the worker was riding in accidentally opened onto the 12th floor where the fire was, burning him instantly. This is the story told in the made-for-TV film FIRE: TRAPPED ON THE 37TH FLOOR, which aired on ABC-TV on February 18, 1991.

Lisa Hartman and Peter Scolari portray two of the survivors of the First Interstate fire who, on that evening, found themselves cut off from help on the 37th floor of the 62-story building when the fire broke out. During a test of the sprinkler system, which is only 90% finished, the water is shut off; and on the 12th floor of the building, the fire erupts. But because it is not only the sprinkler system that isn't functioning but also the smoke alarms, the building's security staff is unable to pinpoint the exact location of the fire until it has already spread beyond their control and tragically killed one of the maintenance workers. By the time the Los Angeles Fire Department, under the command of deputy chief Donald Sterling (Lee Majors) arrives, everyone is out of the building except for Hartman and Scolari, who cannot go down any of the stairwells to safety because of the smoke and the threat that the fire may reach their floor before the fire department can get a handle on it.

Like a great many disaster films based on real-life incidents, FIRE: TRAPPED ON THE 37TH FLOOR does tend to emphasize certain aspects of the story for dramatic license, though not for sensationalistic scenes of death by fire. In a precursor to what happened with New York City and Port Authority fire departments on 9/11, but with only one death attributable to it, communications problems, combined with the perceived false alarms of the smoke detectors and the uninstalled sprinklers, kept the fire burning for far longer than it should have; and many fire personnel who had to fight the fire inside the five floors were hindered in their communications on the ground by the noise and the turbulence generated by the rotor wash of the helicopters doing surveillance of the building. In general, however, given that this was the worst high-rise fire in the city's history, the professionalism of the L.A. Fire Department kept it from being a holocaust, a fact that is acknowledged by this film, as THE TOWERING INFERNO had emphasized in its fictional version of the ultimate high-rise horror story.

Even though Jeffrey Bloom's screenplay and Robert Day's direction occasionally tend to veer in the somewhat melodramatic direction of so many disaster movies, both big screen and small screen alike, FIRE: TRAPPED ON THE 37TH FLOOR still manages to boast good performances from TV veterans Scolari, Hartman, and Majors; and the special effects work of Josh Haikan, and the score by Gil Melle (who had worked on director Robert Wise's 1971 sci-fi classic THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN) enhance the mood of the film even more. Like the much more elaborate TV disaster film THE BIG ONE: THE GREAT LOS ANGELES EARTHQUAKE, which aired on NBC only three and a half months before, FIRE: TRAPPED ON THE 37TH FLOOR may not be a masterpiece of either the TV film arena or the disaster film genre, but it is effective enough, especially as it provides a real-enough re-creation of a nightmarish event in L.A. history, one many fear will, even with stricter fire codes, be replicated with far more calamitous results in the future.

Non-Stop-Action. The Better Towering Inferno

[godzillakingmonster · 10/10 · 4 April 2018]

What can I say about this film that the film doesn't say itself. The action scenes are magnificent, the action is non stop and that fun 90's style. The actors are fantastic and give across an emotional performance as if they are real people in a real building fire. This film shows the power of fire and helps shine light on other events like the fire on 9/11 in the World Trade Centre.

The film starts off sorta slow but once the fire starts, the action keeps going until the end credits. The practical effects are fantastic and feel real and the real life footage from "First Interstate Bank's Fire" really brings the event to a new spectrum. I haven't managed to find the DVD or a VHS copy and only know of it from YouTube and Decades TV Movie March. I ran into it while watching Atomic Twister (2002), Another grand TV Film.

I'd recommend this film to anyone and especially to B-Movie/TV Movie lovers like me.