Firefighter Record
Firefighter Details
| Name | Keith Kinnard |
| Agency | Lockport Fire Protection District |
| Rank | Firefighter |
| Type of Firefighter | Paid-On-Call (POC) |
| Age Range | 20 and under |
| Sex | Male |
| Date of Birth | 5/3/1958 |
| Date of Death | 11/28/1976 |
| Cause of Death | Struck by object |
| Nature of Death | Trauma |
| Attribute of Death | [not applicable] |
| Type of Duty | Firefighting operations , Hose operations |
Incident Details
| Incident Name | N/A |
| Incident City | Lockport |
| Incident State | IL |
| Incident Date | 11/28/1976 22:0 |
| Incident Location | Public assembly |
| Incident Attribute | Structural collapses , Fires , Truss roof collapses |
Incident Summary
On November 28, 1976, Firefighter Keith Kinnard of the Lockport Fire Protection District died in the line of duty while fighting a fire at a thirty-six-lane bowling alley in Lockport, Illinois.
Around 10 PM, an employee of the bowling alley reported the fire after noticing sparks and smoke coming out of a light fixture. Kinnard was one of the first firefighters to arrive on scene, and he joined two other Lockport firefighters as they lead a hose line into the building. The hose line was hooked up to a tanker truck because there were no fire hydrants nearby, and the firefighters had just reached the flames at the far end of the building when the water supply ran out. As the firefighters turned back they realized that flames were also in the ceiling above them. Kinnard and the other firefighters were following the hose line back out of the building when the fire and heat in the ceiling caused the truss roof to collapse. The other two firefighters were able to escape with minor injuries, but Kinnard was trapped less than thirty feet from the exit and killed by the falling debris. More than 100 firefighters from ten different departments responded to the fire, and it took firefighters several hours to extinguish the fire and recover Kinnard’s body.
Kinnard had been a paid-on-call firefighter for three months, and he was attending Joliet Junior College where he studied Fire Advancement. He was buried at Resurrection Cemetery in Romeoville on December 2, following funeral services at St. Joseph’s Church in Lockport. Hundreds of firefighters from more than forty communities attended the funeral services.
Citations
Joseph Sjostrom, “Lockport fireman killed beneath collapsing roof,” Chicago Tribune, November 30, 1976.
Firefighter and Incident Images
