Peachtree 25th Building fire

On June 30, 1989, a structure fire occurred at the Peachtree 25th Building, a high-rise office building in the Midtown neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The fire caused the deaths of five individuals and injured up to 38 others.

The fire began around 10:25 a.m. Electricians on the sixth floor of the building's South Tower had been replacing a fuse when an electrical arc occurred, leading to a fire that was localized mostly on that floor. While employees on other floors were able to evacuate and alert the city's fire department, several employees on the sixth floor were prevented from escaping. With some broke windows to allow for ventilation, and before firefighters arrived, one woman jumped, falling 60 feet (18 m), though ultimately surviving. Firefighters were able to rescue several people using long ladders, while others who reached the sixth floor began ventilating the floor. A rescue helicopter was additionally employed. In the end, four people were declared dead at the scene, while another died in hospital several days later.

Following the event, a significant amount of focus centered on the building's lack of a fire sprinkler system, as the building was constructed before any local ordinance existed that would have required the building to have one. Multiple individuals and organizations, including the National Fire Protection Association and the United States Fire Administration, investigated the disaster and made recommendations on requiring high-rises to have a sprinkler system in place, and in testimony before the United States Senate the following year, a vice president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs stated that a sprinkler system could have saved all but one of the lives lost in the fire.