Edifício Andraus, 1972: O Letreiro Que Pegou Fogo e Matou 16 — A História Completa

One thousand two hundred people. Seven hours of fire. Twelve pilots. One hundred and fifty landings on a rooftop. Seven hundred lives saved in the air. Sixteen lives lost in the fire. On February 24, 1972, Thursday, at 4:20 PM, a short circuit in a luminous advertising sign for Casas Pirani on the third floor of a thirty-two-story building in downtown São Paulo started what would be the first major fire in Brazilian history broadcast live on television. The building's name was Andraus. It was located on Avenida São João, at the corner of Rua Pedro Américo. It was one hundred and fifteen meters high. In February 1972, it was the tallest building to burn in the country's history. In seven hours, the fire consumed the building. The firefighters did not have a Magirus ladder that could reach the ninth floor. The internal staircases became chimneys. And it was at that moment, with more than a thousand people trapped inside the building and the fire rising up the exterior facade, that something unprecedented in Brazil happened. The entire fleet of helicopters in São Paulo, twenty aircraft, eleven of which belonged to private companies, was summoned for an aerial rescue operation on the roof. Twelve pilots. One hundred and fifty successive landings. Five hundred people airlifted. Seven hundred rescued in total. This was not the Joelma fire. The Joelma fire would come two years later, on February 1, 1974, with more than one hundred and eighty deaths, exactly twenty-four days after the State of São Paulo published Decree number ten thousand eight hundred and seventy-eight, the first official regulation of fire safety in buildings in Brazil, which came too late. This was the rehearsal. The warning. The tragedy that showed Brazil what happens when a skyscraper catches fire during business hours in a country that had no safety regulations whatsoever. This documentary reconstructs, second by second, the afternoon when Brazil discovered that a skyscraper without a fire door, without an external staircase, without safety regulations, with an overloaded electrical sign, is a trap waiting for a spark. You will understand Brazil in February 1972, under the military dictatorship of General Médici, in the second and a half year of the economic miracle, with the AI-5 in full force, the Cruzeiro as currency, Cid Moreira and Hilton Gomes on the news desk of Jornal Nacional on black and white television, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil still in exile in London, Chico Buarque recently returned from Italian exile, Roberto Carlos releasing hit after hit, Pelé's Santos playing, the national team four months away from the Mini-World Cup and seven months away from the Sesquicentennial of Independence. Beetles, Variants, Galaxies, Opals and Corcels parked on the streets of downtown. Brasília, Chevette, and Maverick didn't even exist yet—they would all arrive in 1973. You'll understand how the São Paulo Energy Company, CESP, had sent formal letters to the administration of the Andraus Building warning about excessive electrical load on the signs of Casas Pirani, and how these warnings were ignored. How Commander Olendino Francisco de Souza, in the Bell 24 PP-ENC of the São Paulo State Government, carried out 37 of the approximately 400 rescues from the top of the building in a single day, becoming the greatest reference in Brazilian rescue aviation and making February 24th the Brazilian Helicopter Pilot's Day. One thousand two hundred people were inside the Andraus at 4:20 PM. Seven hundred came out alive. Sixteen remained. In memory of the sixteen lives lost. #Andraus #Andraus1972 #AndrausFire #VoiceOfTheCenturies #Documentary #HistoryOfBrazil #Brazil1972 #MilitaryDictatorship #SãoPauloFirefighters #AirRescue #Bell204 #OlendinoFranciscoDeSouza #HelicopterPilotDay #SãoPaulo #CasasPirani #AvSãoJoão #Joelma #Decree10878