Classification: Documented

The Joelma Building: the stairwell, the rescue, and the Thirteen Souls

In 1974, a fire swept through the Joelma offices and exposed how a modern building could fail against smoke. Survivors, rescuers, a decree issued six days later, and a memorial to thirteen victims form the story that remains in São Paulo.

São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil · See stories from this place and nearby

The morning of the fire

A call from reception told Hiroshi Shimuta that the Joelma Building was on fire. It was the morning of 1 February 1974 in central São Paulo. He worked on the 22nd floor and had arrived early to read the papers. Newly the father of twins, he tried to leave but found smoke in his path. He later told Agência Brasil that he and others sheltered in a bathroom and, when smoke reached them, moved onto an outside ledge. They waited hours to be rescued. His account gives a human scale to a disaster often compressed into photographs of a burning tower.

The building and its occupants

Joelma stood at Avenida Nove de Julho 225, near Rua Santo Antônio. Designed by Salvador Candia, it consisted of two towers joined by a central stairway. Parking occupied the lower levels and offices the upper ones. The numbering therefore jumped from the seventh to the eleventh floor: the parking levels were as tall as roughly ten ordinary stories. That detail helps explain why floor numbers in reports can confuse readers trying to picture people's routes and the reach of rescue ladders.

Where the fire began

Press accounts place the start of the fire at about 8:50 a.m. on the 12th floor, linking it to a short circuit in Banco Crefisul's air-conditioning system. The reported cause does not make every minute of the emergency certain. What can be reconstructed is the broader sequence: flames met carpets, partitions, curtains, and combustible furniture; wind and openings helped them spread; smoke soon reached the routes occupants needed to escape. The concrete structure did not stop office contents from burning quickly. A building can retain much of its frame and still become deadly to the people inside.

The stairwell that offered no protection

The central stairway was the difference between leaving and being trapped. It was not a protected emergency staircase with fire doors to keep out smoke. One survivor interviewed by Agência Brasil described returning briefly for a pen his father had given him. Seconds later, the lift lobby and stairway had become impassable. He ended up with the group sheltered on the 22nd floor. This is no moral lesson about one person's choice: it shows how quickly the chance to evacuate could close. Without a safe route, people sought rooms, windows, and the roof. There was no helipad on the roof, while heat and smoke hindered approaching aircraft.

Rescue beyond ordinary reach

Rescuers improvised at different heights. Firefighters' external ladders could not readily reach the upper offices; Hiroshi recalled a Magirus ladder combined with an aluminium ladder to reach his group. Nearby, Palácio Anchieta, home of the City Council, had a helipad. The Council's historical report says the first helicopter could not land at Joelma; at 12:30 p.m. an Air Force helicopter began taking injured people to the neighbouring helipad. Doctors, nurses, and medical students formed an emergency station there. The story of the fire also includes that short journey between a roof in danger and another turned into a place of care.

One technical detail is easy to miss in the photographs. Another survivor interviewed by Agência Brasil recalled that his group unrolled a fire hose but found no water at the valve. A summary in the São Paulo state court's archive says the building held 40,000 litres in reserve while the valves supplying the hydrants were closed. The testimony and the archive agree that water was unavailable during the emergency; neither, by itself, reconstructs every prior maintenance decision or establishes individual blame. The incident shows the difference between owning equipment and having it ready to work when seconds matter.

Counting the victims

Honesty matters when counting the dead. In a 2024 retrospective, City Hall cited 170 fatalities while acknowledging uncertainty. The City Council gives 189 and Memória Globo 187. Agência Brasil reported Adriano Dolph's investigation, which located 181 autopsy reports. The methods, dates, and criteria behind these totals are not identical. Choosing one figure and erasing the others would mislead readers. The sources converge on more than 300 injured, but no statistic replaces names, families, and the long consequences for survivors.

The earlier warning: the Andraus Building

There was a nearby warning. The Andraus Building fire of 1972 had already exposed risks in São Paulo's growing high-rise landscape. The Council interviewed a man whose wife survived that fire and who watched Joelma from his workplace. The recurrence does not mean the buildings were identical. It means the city already knew the broader problem: tall buildings, combustible interiors, and exit routes that could not keep pace with an emergency. Joelma made a municipal response impossible to postpone.

What changed in safety rules

Six days later, on 7 February 1974, City Hall issued Decree No. 10,878. Its original text can still be read in the municipal legislation catalogue. It set rules for plans, construction, equipment, and operation; classified risks; and addressed occupancy, escape routes, fire-resistant materials, and firefighting measures. Article 27 allowed corrective measures and even closure of buildings deemed unsafe. City Hall explains that the decree spurred a special inspection group, the later CONTRU building-safety office, and subsequent building-code revisions. A fast decree was not a magical guarantee: inspection, adaptation of existing buildings, and maintenance still mattered.

Remembering the unidentified

Another layer of memory has less to do with codes than with people whom the city could not name. Thirteen unidentified victims were buried side by side in São Pedro Cemetery, in Vila Alpina. Their graves became known as those of the ‘Thirteen Souls.’ Reporting by piauí found visitors leaving water, flowers, bread, and plaques of thanks and attributing favours to the souls. A project for renovating the memorial, dated 2025, shows that the memory continues to be tended. These acts show a living devotion and a symbolic response to anonymity; they do not prove miracles or supernatural presences. The concrete loss is that the victims' names remain unknown.

The building after the disaster

The building was renovated, reopened, and renamed Edifício Praça da Bandeira. Its physical survival may explain why the catastrophe feels at once distant and present: the address remains part of city life while the 1974 images keep circulating. Memória Globo's archive allows readers to examine television coverage, including decisions to show extremely distressing scenes. Watch knowing these are records of real deaths, not entertainment. Modern photographs and the cemetery memorial show what changed and what remains.

Joelma’s legacy

Joelma offers no supernatural answer to the disaster. It leaves hard, documentable questions: how smoke overtook the exit; why the rescue required improvisation; how victims are counted when archives disagree; what a city does for its unnamed dead; and what lies between issuing a safety rule and making it work. The decree issued six days later and the Thirteen Souls memorial are different consequences of the same fire. One looks after future building occupants; the other keeps those who died from disappearing from the record.

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