Spanish and international media report that a fire early on Sunday, 1st October killed 13 people in a nightclub in Murcia, southeast Spain. The cause of the fire is not yet known. Nightclubs in Spain do not need to be protected with sprinklers. Nightclubs are particularly vulnerable to major loss of life in a fire. They are crowded, dark and their occupants may be intoxicated. No country is immune from these tragedies yet they are preventable. 20 years ago, a few weeks after the EFSN began operating, a fire in a nightclub killed 100 in Rhode Island, USA. That fire was caused by pyrotechnics igniting sound insulation. Since then there have been several more tragic nightclub fires with this same scenario. In 2003, reconstructions showed that sprinklers would have prevented the deaths and Rhode Island introduced a requirement for nightclubs to be protected with sprinklers.