Denmark Place fire

On the night of 16 August 1980, a fire broke out at 18 Denmark Place in central London, a building housing two unlicensed bars on its top two floors: The Spanish Rooms, frequented by local Irish and Jamaican immigrants, and Rodo's (also known as El Dandy), a salsa club popular with South American immigrants. The fire killed 37 people of eight nationalities; most victims were Spanish or Latin American patrons of the two bars. The Sunday Times described it at the time as potentially "the worst mass murder in British history."

Both bars operated without licences and were accessed via a locked front door and staircase, with entry granted by shouting up from the street for a key. Windows were boarded up, and a fire escape on the upper floor was enclosed with plywood, with the door leading to it bolted shut. The Metropolitan Police were aware of the clubs and had planned to close them on 18 August 1980; a farewell party was underway at the time of the fire.

The fire was started by John Thompson, a Scottish-born petty criminal aged 42, who had been drinking at The Spanish Rooms and believed he had been overcharged by the barman. After a fight, he was ejected and the door locked behind him. Thompson found a 2-gallon container outside, took a taxi to a 24-hour petrol station in Camden, filled the container with petrol, returned to the building, poured the petrol through the letterbox of the front door, and ignited it with a lit piece of paper.

The building's timber construction allowed the fire to spread rapidly. With an estimated 150 people inside, escape was severely hampered by the boarded-up windows, the locked fire escape, and the absence of fire safety measures typical of unlicensed premises. The wooden staircase, the main entrance and exit, was destroyed by the flames. Some patrons attempting to flee via the back door found it locked; others broke windows and jumped to the street. Several people became trapped behind security shutters at an adjoining music shop on Denmark Street, though one firefighter rescued six people from that area. Firefighters arrived around 03:30, initially were driven back by sparks and embers when attempting to force the front door, and took four minutes to break it down once access was possible—finding the staircase fully ablaze. Many victims died at the spot where they had been sitting or standing, according to an officer of the London Fire Brigade.

In May 1981, Thompson was convicted on a specimen charge of murdering one victim, 63-year-old Archibald Campbell, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He died of lung cancer in prison custody on 16 August 2008, the 28th anniversary of the fire. The disaster received comparatively little public attention at the time, and no formal enquiry was held; some victims' families were reportedly unaware of the full circumstances of the deaths. In 2022, following redevelopment of the site, a commemorative plaque was installed.