On January 19th, 2017, the Plasco building, a 17-story steel high-rise, caught fire. The blaze began on one of the building’s upper floors and then spread quickly through the tower’s sprinkler-less garment workshops. As the Tehran fire department battled the nearly unreachable fire, the steel skyscraper collapsed in full view of state television cameras. Sixteen firefighters and at least six civilians were found dead in the smoldering debris. Tens of thousands of citizens publicly mourned the firefighters when they were laid to rest in the “martyrs” section of the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery. In addition to the human toll, Tehran also lost a landmark building, the first steel framed high-rise to be erected in the city in the 1960s.
