The date was Feb. 7, 1967. The call to the fire department seemed to be routine, for a kitchen fire. 49 years later, and the Dale Penthouse Restaurant fire is still burned into many people's memories.
"I won't never forget that fire," says Herbert Ratsch.
Ratsch was a firefighter with the Montgomery Fire Department during that time. He says when firefighters arrived they actually didn't see anything out of the ordinary. The only thing which seemed a little odd was a window glass pane came crashing down on their car.
"We looked at each other and said what in the world was that?," recalls Ratsch.
He says they didn't think much of it, jumped on the elevator, and headed for the restaurant on the 11th floor.
Thankfully they ended up getting off on the 10th floor, just one floor below and quickly realized the top floor was covered in flames.
"It was like a tornado and the flames were rolling from the next floor up. I'm laying on the ground and I'm looking through this opening and I see somebody fall and they are on fire. Somebody else trips over them and they fell and they are on fire," Ratsch said.
He and others tried to pry open a door to rescue those inside, but tried as they might the steel door wouldn't budge.
"If we could have gotten it open, we might have saved some of them," says Ratsch.
They were able to rescue about 15 people who were on a patio outside the restaurant.