The '''UpStairs Lounge arson attack''', sometimes called the '''UpStairs Lounge Fire''', occurred on June 24, 1973, at a [[gay bar]] called the UpStairs (or Up Stairs) Lounge located on the 2nd floor of the 3-story building at 604 Iberville Street in [[New Orleans]], [[Louisiana]], in the United States.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.noladefender.com/content/up45stairs-lo1unge-fire-memorial-40-years-later |title=Upstairs Lounge Fire Memorial, 40 Years Later |work=Nola Defender |access-date=September 21, 2014 |archive-date=July 29, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170729050322/http://www.noladefender.com/content/up45stairs-lo1unge-fire-memorial-40-years-later |url-status=dead }}</ref> 32Thirty-two people died and 15 were injured as a result of fire or smoke inhalation.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/article_7aef8d26-896f-5f5b-8fa1-53fb5b9a33ac.html|title = From the ashes: New book looks at impact of 1973 up Stairs Lounge fire in the French Quarter| date=June 23, 2018 }}</ref> The official cause is still listed as "undetermined origin".<ref name="Delery">{{cite book |last1=Delery-Edwards |first1=Clayton |year=2014 |title=The Up Stairs Lounge Arson: Thirty-two Deaths in a New Orleans Gay Bar, June 24, 1973 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0786479535 }}</ref> The primary suspect, a gay man with a history of psychiatric impairment named Roger Dale Nunez who had been ejected from the bar earlier in the day, was never charged and died by suicide in November 1974.<ref name=freund/><ref name=townsend>{{cite book |last1=Townsend |first1=Johnny |year=2011 |title=Let the Faggots Burn: The UpStairs Lounge Fire |publisher=BookLocker |isbn=9781614344537}}</ref><ref name=vice>{{Cite web|url=https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kwxwvn/the-anniversary-of-the-upstairs-lounge-arson-the-biggest-gay-mass-murder-in-us-history-459|title=Revisiting a Deadly Arson Attack on a New Orleans Gay Bar on Its 42nd Anniversary|first=Mike|last=Pearl|date=June 25, 2015|access-date=September 6, 2019}}</ref>
Until the 2016 [[Orlando nightclub shooting]], in which 49 people were murdered, the UpStairs Lounge arson attack was the deadliest attack on a gay club in U.S. history.
