Last Alarm

Last Alarm: The Charleston 9 is the heart-wrenching story of how nine brave firefighters died battling the 2007 Sofa Super Store fire in Charleston, South Carolina. Life-endangering conditions combined together to create a 'perfect firestorm' ---a fuel-ladened furniture store that was a time bomb and death trap, and a fire department at the time that was understaffed, ill-equipped, and far below national fire service standards. The author, Thomas A. Woodley, a labor litigation lawyer who represented many firefighters and emergency medical workers for over forty years, provides a factbased account of the multiple alarm response to the biggest structure fire in Charleston in 150 years. Thorough investigations and well documented reports issued by federal agencies and a review team of outside experts, plus firefighter interviews and media articles, enabled the author to accumulate a wealth of material to shed insights on one of the deadliest fires in recent memory.