The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has documented several dozen hotel fires in the United States since the 1930s that each killed more than ten people, deeming these incidents fires of historical note. The Winecoff Hotel fire of December 7, 1946, in Atlanta, Georgia, which claimed 119 lives, is the deadliest hotel fire disaster in United States history.

1870s Southern Hotel

This fire broke out around 1 am on April 11, 1877, killing 21 people at the Southern Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri. The fire may have been burning for half an hour before the alarm sounded. The building was reduced to smoking ruins, and a replacement Southern Hotel was built on the site in 1880.

1880s Newhall House Hotel On January 10, 1883, a fire destroyed the Newhall House Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, killing 71 people. The disaster was investigated by reporters of The Daily Journal (now Milwaukee Journal), newly edited by Lucius W. Nieman. The paper reported an "appalling story of neglect, falsehood, manipulation and concealing of truth that preceded the tragedy."Scott Cutlip (Fall !964) "Portrait without blemishes", Columbia Journalism Review, pp 42,3 The Journals exposeé secured it subscriptions, giving it viability in Milwaukee's competitive newspaper market.

The city block where Newall house was located became Milwaukee's "death block" when Fire Chief James Foley and three firemen died there in 1903. Then October 26, 1913, seven people, including some firemen, died fighting fire on the block.

1890s Windsor Hotel

On March 17, 1899, in the deadliest hotel fire in New York City history, the Windsor Hotel was destroyed, with approximately 86 persons killed.

1900s Park Avenue Hotel On February 22, 1902, the Park Avenue Hotel in New York City was partially destroyed by a million-dollar fire that killed at least 17.

1910s Hotel Adams Fire The Hotel Adams in Phoenix, Arizona was completely destroyed by an early morning fire which started in the hotel's basement. Two people were killed in the blaze.

Dewey Hotel The three-story Dewey Hotel in Omaha, Nebraska was destroyed by fire in the early morning of February 28, 1913. An estimated 20 people were killed and many injured, though exact numbers are unknown. It is believed the fire may have been caused by a gas leak, leading to an explosion from the overloaded furnace.

Arcadia Hotel

On December 3, 1913, a fire in the Arcadia Hotel, a flophouse on Washington Street in Boston's South End, killed 28 and injured 50. The fire was caused by the ignition of garbage in a closet above the boiler.

1930s Kerns Hotel

On December 11, 1934, shortly before 5:30 am, a fire broke out in the Kerns Hotel in Lansing, Michigan. 34 people died and 44 were injured, including 14 firemen. The 211-room four-story hotel was constructed of brick with a wooden interior, and the fire spread rapidly, trapping many of the hotel's 215 guests in their rooms and forcing them to escape via fire ladders or life nets. Among the dead were seven Michigan state legislators: state senator John Leidlein and state representatives T. Henry Howlett, Charles D. Parker, Vern Voorhees, John W. Goodwine, Don E. Sias, and D. Knox Hanna, who were in town for a special session of the state legislature. Several other state legislators were injured but survived. The fire was thought to have been caused by careless smoking. It is regarded by the Lansing Fire Department as the worst fire disaster in Lansing history.

Terminal Hotel On May 16, 1938, a fire broke out in the Terminal Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, killing 35 people, although some sources claim the death toll was either 27 or 34. The five-story hotel was located at Spring and Mitchell Streets across the street from Terminal Station in the Hotel Row district. The fire broke out in the basement and shortly thereafter a bellhop heard a kitchen boy yell, "O Lawdy, fire". The fire spread quickly, choking off fire escapes and stairs just a few seconds after it caught. The building was fully ablaze minutes after the alarm bell sounded shortly after 3:00 am. Soon after the fire team arrived, the roof collapsed, hampering rescue efforts. Traffic was blocked off for blocks around since the walls were also in danger of collapsing. One hotel guest reported having to jump from the second-floor elevator cage. Several people were killed leaping from the building, including William Oscar Webster, a railroad engineer from Columbus, Georgia, who had jumped from a fourth-floor window. Firemen reported that they later found a whole family dead in one room, a woman in a rocking chair, a man and a boy stretched across the bed, and a girl kneeling by it.

George P. Jones, the hotel manager, reported that there were about 75 people in the hotel at the time of the fire; a substantial number of them were railroad workers. The hotel was rebuilt in 1938 and not included in the Hotel Row District.

1940s Marlborough Hotel

On January 3, 1940, a fire broke out in the aging Marlborough Hotel in Minneapolis, Minnesota, killing 19 people. It was the city's deadliest fire. The fire burned quickly through walls and doors and engulfed most of the hotel's 56 single rooms and 23 apartment units, where some 123 tenants were asleep. The guests either fled through the corridors with coats over their heads or jumped from their rooms and were killed because the stairways were blocked by fire. Some fell to their deaths when floors collapsed, notably the second floor, and buried them in the basement under tons of debris. One child trapped on the third floor screamed for 15 minutes before he died in the flames. One man, James Brown, pushed his wife Mabel from a window when she refused to jump; she was killed but he survived. Another woman jumped head-first out of a window and was killed instantly. A resident across the street reported that he awoke to hear "the worst screams I ever heard" and saw that half the block in which the hotel was located was completely ablaze.

Fifteen fire engines and five trucks containing some 130 firemen were called to the fire in icy January conditions, temperature −5 °C (41 °F). At least 40 people were injured in the fire, including 2 firemen, and 23 required hospital treatment. The hotel was completely gutted and reduced just to a "charred hollow rectangle." Fire Chief Huttner initially though the fire was caused by a boiler that exploded in the furnace room, but it was later concluded that it was a "heat explosion" caused by a burning cigarette thrown in a garbage chute that set fire to the hotel's thin wooden walls. The garbage caught fire and became a ball of fire that exploded in "volcanic violence."

Gulf Hotel

On September 7, 1943, a fire broke out in the Gulf Hotel in downtown Houston, Texas, killing 55 people. The fire remains the deadliest in Houston's history.

New Amsterdam Hotel On March 28, 1944, a fire, believed to be deliberately set, destroyed the New Amsterdam Hotel in San Francisco, California. It was the worst fire in that city since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, killing 22 and injuring 27. On August 3, 1944, George Holman, a 47-year old cafe proprietor, was found guilty of 22 counts of murder in the first degree for setting the fire.Associated Press, “Cafe Proprietor Found Guilty in Hotel Fire”, The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Saturday 5 August 1944, Volume 50, page 3. On August 15, he was sentenced to 22 concurrent life terms in prison.Associated Press, “Man Convicted in Fatal Hotel Fire Gets 22 Life Terms”, The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Wednesday 16 August 1944, Volume 50, page 7.

General Clark Hotel On January 16, 1945, a fire at the General Clark Hotel on the north side of the loop in Chicago, Illinois, killed 14 people. Six were hospitalized with injuries. Fire Marshall Michael J. Corrigan described it as the worst fire in the loop district in 25 years.Associated Press, “Fire in Chicago Hotel Fatal to 14”, The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino California, Wednesday 17 January 1944, Volume 51, page 1.

La Salle Hotel

On June 5, 1946, a fire broke out in the La Salle Hotel in Chicago, killing 61 people, many of them children. The fire began in the Silver Grill Cocktail Lounge on the lower floor on the LaSalle Street side adjacent to the lobby, spread quickly through the highly varnished wood paneling in the lounge and the mezzanine balcony overlooking the lobby, and rose through stairwells and shafts. According to the Chicago Fire Department the fire started either in the walls or ceiling at around 12:15 am, but they were not notified until 12:35 am. While a significant number died from the flames, a greater number of deaths were caused by suffocation from the smoke. Around 900 guests were able to leave the building but some 150 required rescue by fire services and members of the public, including two sailors who were reported to have rescued 27 people between them. Two-thirds of hotel fire deaths in 1946 occurred in the La Salle fire and the Winecoff fire in Atlanta. The La Salle fire prompted the Chicago city council to enact new hotel building codes and firefighting procedures, including the installation of automatic alarm systems and fire safety instructions inside hotel rooms. The hotel was refurbished after the fire and was finally demolished in July 1976; its lot is now occupied by the Two North LaSalle office building.

Canfield Hotel On June 19, 1946, two weeks after the La Salle Hotel fire, a fire broke out in the six-story 200-room Canfield Hotel in Dubuque, Iowa, killing 19 people. The fire started around 11:30 pm in a closet near the cocktail lounge on the ground floor and destroyed the four-story section of the building, which was built in 1891. Contributing factors that added to the severity of this incident were delayed alarms, open stairways, and the presence of combustible materials. According to fire captain Harold Cosgrove, 30 people were rescued by jumping onto nets and 27 were carried down ladders.

Winecoff Hotel

On December 7, 1946, a fire broke out in the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, killing 119 people. it remained the deadliest hotel fire in United States history; it prompted many changes in building codes across the nation.:File:The_Winecoff_Fire.jpg: Official plaque near the Winecoff Hotel

The fire started in the 15-story building early in the morning, and engulfed all floors of the hotel. The only escape route was a single stairway; the building had no fire sprinklers, fire escapes, fire doors, or even an alarm bell. The fire spread throughout the building via the stairway. Caught unaware, many people were trapped on the upper floors, and most of the deaths were among people forced to jump. Atlanta firefighters could reach only up to the eighth floor with ladders, and the nets they spread could not hold many who jumped into them—holding capacity was limited to jumps from up to 70 ft—and many people died on the sidewalks behind the hotel.

Guests at the hotel included teenagers attending a Tri-Y Youth Conference organized by the YMCA in the city, Christmas shoppers, and people in town to see the film Song of the South. Arnold Hardy, a 26-year-old graduate student at Georgia Tech, became the first amateur to win a Pulitzer Prize for Photography for his snapshot of a woman, later identified as survivor Daisy McCumber, in mid-air after jumping from the 11th floor of the hotel during the fire. McCumber, born in 1905, broke her back, pelvis and both legs, but survived. Over a 10-year period, she underwent seven surgeries and lost a leg, but still worked until retirement age and lived until 1992. A plaque was erected at the scene as a memorial to the dead and the survivors, and to the firefighters who, with limited resources, tackled the fire and its consequences.