Cheating death

A trio's lifelong connection: Surviving horror

Mic Smith
The Post and Courier

During the night of the Sofa Super Store fire, the crew from Engine 6 was the last out of the building. Capt. Mark Davis (left), engineer Billy Kilcoyne (center) and firefighter Thaddeus Morgan talk about their experience during the fire.

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In the week of the anniversary of the fire, three firefighters reunite for the first time in a year and reflect upon the events of the fatal night Watch »

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Key moments from the last twelve months of the Sofa Super Store fire Watch »

They call it a brotherhood. Soldiers know it. Firefighters know it. It's a bond that forms when you fight together in a war, see death up close and fear in another man's eyes.

One year after the Sofa Super Store blaze that killed nine Charleston firefighters, three who cheated death that day look back on the tragedy that forever links their lives.

The crew of Station 6 on Cannon Street was the only team that actively fought the June 18 inferno inside the store and made it out alive.

The day of the fire

Their shift on June 18 almost passed unremarkably. They might have had an EMS call that day, but no one really remembers. They cleaned the station and washed equipment to pass the time.

Thaddeus Morgan, 28, the newest guy on the crew, got stuck with the dirty chores.

Morgan learned to fight fire out West, where raging blazes regularly devour massive swaths of wildlands.

Engineer Billy Kilcoyne, 42, rounded out the crew that day. Boisterous and a joker, Kilcoyne had a reputation as a firefighter's firefighter.

Capt. Mark Davis, 34, was a 13-year veteran of the department. A natural leader, he was known for his calm, even in the chaos of a fire.

Davis spent the morning quizzing Morgan on firefighting equipment.

For lunch, the crew ordered takeout from Jim 'N Nick's barbecue. No one talked as they ate. Firefighters never know when a call might interrupt a good meal.

The rest of the afternoon slipped by quietly.

Just after 7 p.m., the station's dispatch radio crackled with chatter about a trash fire in West Ashley. In the event of a working fire in West Ashley, Engine 6 was to head out from Cannon Street to cover for the responding stations.

"It made it sound like it was nothing," Morgan said.

He figured he had enough time to jog to the corner store for sodas. By the time he returned, Davis and Kilcoyne were climbing onto the engine. They rolled out at 7:13 p.m.

When Fire Chief Rusty Thomas arrived at the fire, he radioed for Engine 6 to come directly to the store.

Kilcoyne steered the truck over the Ashley River bridge toward the darkening cloud of smoke and stopped in the middle of Savannah Highway in front of the store.

Arriving at the store

It was 7:22 p.m., and the fire had been burning for about 12 minutes. Kilcoyne looked up at Davis as they jumped off the truck. "This looks bad," Kilcoyne said.

Davis and Morgan slipped on their face masks and pushed inside through a gray curtain of smoke, which grew thicker and blacker as they traced a 1 1/2-inch hose to the back of the west showroom. Kilcoyne stayed behind to put on his gear.

The two passed firefighters from Engine 11, who were on their way out to grab another hose. Davis followed the other crew's hose through the thick smoke to the face of the fire. He picked up the nozzle from the floor and aimed it at a corridor that led to the loading dock.

Morgan peeled back the sleeve of his protective coat to gauge the heat on his bare skin. The moment he felt the super-heated air, he knew it was a monster, unlike anything he'd ever fought.

Davis aimed water at the fire as a couple of firefighters emerged from the coal-black smoke and garbled something about needing to get out. Then they vanished, like ghosts.

Joining the fight

Back outside, Kilcoyne finished putting on his gear and grabbed a pike pole. He followed a hose line to the back of the store where he hoped to catch up with Davis and Morgan. He heaved his pike pole at the sheetrock wall and ceiling tiles, looking for hidden flames. Tendrils of fire twisted out.

Suddenly a stream of firefighters charged at him, panicked and running out of air. "I'm lost," one screamed.

Another firefighter lunged at Kilcoyne's chest. A third firefighter yelled and dropped to the ground before scrambling between Kilcoyne's legs in a desperate attempt to escape.

Kilcoyne couldn't tell who they were. They just bounced off him and disappeared into the darkness.

Those firefighters — Billy Hutchinson, Mark Kelsey, Brad Baity and Earl Drayton — would be dead in minutes.

Davis continued spraying the fire at the back of the west showroom. He stood toe to toe with the searing flames, the water his only protection.

He thought he had the upper hand as the fire slowly darkened. He closed the nozzle to get a better look, knowing the steam that hung in the air would buy him a few seconds. When he opened the nozzle again, only spurts of water came out. "It was just dead," he said.

He tried to find out why he had no pressure but his radio didn't work. Crucial seconds ticked by. Without a fresh torrent of water to fight it, the fire roared back to life.

Davis crouched against the flames, hoping to stay in position until the water flowed again. But no water came, and the heat was too intense. The fire surged forward and singed his wrists.

As Davis retreated to the doorway that led back to the main showroom, the fire took off, uncontrolled, devouring everything in sight. In the smoky darkness, he traced his way along the hose line until something hard stopped him. The heat had triggered a sensor in the roll-up door, forcing it closed on the hose line — blocking his path, his way out.

He tried to stay calm, believing he could still find another exit. Then, his face mask began to vibrate, a dire warning that he was low on air. Panic set in. "I said to myself, 'I'm going to die in this building.' "

He guessed at a path and charged blindly through the darkness, heaving some furniture to the side and crawling over couches until he reached another doorway leading back to the main showroom. The automatic sensors on this and a third door had failed and the doors had not closed, preserving Davis' escape route.

Morgan became lost and separated from Davis. As he stumbled and fell in the maze of furniture, he could hear firefighters' pleas over his radio.

Nearby, Davis rammed through piles of burning tables and chairs, praying he'd chosen the right direction to safety. On one burst, he fell on something soft: another firefighter's boots — Morgan's boots.

Morgan saw that Davis' air was almost gone. Each breath sucked his mask into his face. He heaved for wisps of air. "We've got to get out!" Davis pleaded.

Davis was always calm at fires. When Morgan saw the fear in his captain's eyes, he got scared.

"We all went into survival mode," Davis said. "Every man was trying to save their life."

Defying the odds

Kilcoyne lost connection with the hose when the succession of disoriented firefighters rushed past him. He desperately walked in ever-widening circles until he found it again.

Another lost firefighter ran up to Kilcoyne, who grabbed the firefighter's jacket and pulled him along as he traced the hose. He didn't know he was going in the wrong way until a fire door blocked his path, the same door that had stopped Davis' exit from the other side.

Kilcoyne turned and retraced his path, his grip locked on the other firefighter. When he heard Engine 11 rumbling from the parking lot, he knew they were close. They flung their bodies the last few feet to safety.

Kilcoyne checked to see if the other firefighter was OK before rushing back into the store. His crew was still in there.

At that same moment, Davis and Morgan, still clawing the air for a way out, saw the silhouette of a firefighter coming toward them through the smoke. Davis reached out his arm and snagged Kilcoyne's air hose.

The crew of Station 6 could not see their hands in front of their faces, but they reunited against nearly impossible odds. Kilcoyne pulled Davis toward a shaft of light glowing from outside. Morgan followed.

They emerged from the store just as the scene outside descended into pandemonium. Firefighters smashed windows, Thomas screamed orders. The store erupted.

Davis and Morgan stumbled around in a daze before collapsing to the ground. Davis inhaled giant gasps of air. He remembers Thomas frantically yelling something about who was still inside, but all he could think of was his own crew.

Davis shouted for Morgan until he saw that Morgan had gotten out just behind him. Morgan stared at his captain's shell-shocked face, looking for an explanation.

"I just remember staring at Mark's face and thinking there were people still in there," Morgan said.

Finding the dead

As crews gained control over parts of the fire, word spread that Capt. Louis Mulkey of Station 15 was missing. Thomas ordered Davis to take his crew inside to look for Mulkey's body.

Mulkey had stopped by Station 6 earlier in the day to visit with Davis and Kilcoyne. The three had come up through the department's ranks together. Now, they were searching for their friend's body.

The partial collapse of the store's roof had created a walkway to the interior of the building and a small void where firefighters could squeeze underneath. The fire was still burning in the warehouse and hot spots flared in the showroom.

Less than two hours after the fire started, Davis ducked under fallen beams and shined his flashlight into a dark crevasse. The beam bounced off something reflective. He crawled inside and pulled out a firefighter's helmet. It said "19."

That's strange, Davis thought. Mulkey was on 15. He figured one of the guys from Station 19 had left his helmet behind in the rush to get out.

Kilcoyne knew they were looking for Mulkey, but something told him there were others. "I think they are in the back," he called out to Davis.

Davis scanned the wreckage. His eyes locked on the familiar shape of a firefighter's air pack. He radioed Thomas: "I found what you sent us in to look for."

As they worked to clear a space around the body, someone spotted another motionless figure just a few feet away.

The discovery of bodies settled into an eerie pattern. No one knew how many were missing. A list of names went from one to three. Then from five to eight. And finally, nine.

Hours passed before Davis and his crew heard that the first body they found was not Mulkey but Baity.

At sunrise, Davis, Kilcoyne and Morgan climbed into their truck and drove back to their station in silence.

After the fire

The crew of Station 6 has gone separate ways but its members stay in touch.

"There is a bond that will never go away," said Kilcoyne, the only one of the three who remains at the station.

Davis was reassigned to Station 15, where he started his career with Mulkey. Just last week, Davis and his wife had their first son and gave the baby the middle name Louis in honor of the fallen firefighter.

Morgan left the department a few months after the fire. He needed to get away and took a job in Iraq as a civilian firefighter before moving back to his native Arizona.

He returned to Charleston this week for the fire's anniversary and wants to rejoin the department — and his brothers.

Reach Ron Menchaca at rmenchaca@postandcourier.com or 937-5724.