Thursday marks the 35th anniversary of the worst loss of life in the history of the Buffalo Fire Department.
December 27, 1983, five firefighters and two other people were killed when a fire at a warehouse on N. Division St. ignited a propane explosion. Dozens of others were hurt in the blast.
One man who was injured in the blaze returned to the memorial, that stands at the site of the deadly explosion, and said the firefighters had told him at first it was a false alarm.
"And then the building just blew up," said Theodore Hampton, who was injured in the fire. "It just blew up. I mean, being so close to the building, you could barely hear anything. But I knew that, I was knocked out, after I came to, that many people had died that night."
The fire department traditionally sends out a radio message each year on the date at 8:23 p.m., the moment the explosion happened 35 years ago.