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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. Recently, listener Greta wrote in and included a

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Speaker 1: suggestion for an episode on the Pestigo Fire. Prior hosts

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Speaker 1: of the show covered the Pestigo Fire as part of

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Speaker 1: an episode on some of history's most unforgettable fires and

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Speaker 1: some of the commonalities among those fires. In addition to

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Speaker 1: the Pestigo Fire, there's also the Great Fire of London,

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Speaker 1: the Great Fire of Mariki, and the Great San Francisco

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Speaker 1: earthquake and fire. While talking about the Mariki Fire, Sarah

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Speaker 1: and Deblieva mentioned the Great Conto earthquake, of which we

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Speaker 1: covered on the show on June two, and on November

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Speaker 1: we also took a longer look at the San Francisco

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Speaker 1: earthquake and fire that's covered briefly in this episode. Thanks

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Speaker 1: so much to Gretta for inspiring today's Saturday Classic and

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Speaker 1: everyone enjoyed. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a production of I Heart ratey You Hello, and welcome

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Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm to Blame a Chocolate Boarding and

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Speaker 1: I'm fair Douting. And we recently covered the Triangle Shirtwaist

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Speaker 1: factory fire, which at the time was one of the

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Speaker 1: deadliest workplace disasters New York and perhaps the entire country

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Speaker 1: had ever seen. It was a tough one. It was

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Speaker 1: tough to research and tough to talk about. It was

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Speaker 1: tough to research because it was such a sad topic.

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Speaker 1: But it is easy to see why listeners requested so much,

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Speaker 1: because it was fascinating to learn about. We were really

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Speaker 1: fascinated by all the little vignettes from survivors, rescuers, witnesses.

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Speaker 1: Some of the points that really struck us the most

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Speaker 1: were how quickly the fire started and spread, how split

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Speaker 1: second decisions people made seemed to make a difference, and

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Speaker 1: how it really influenced the lives of the people who

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Speaker 1: were involved and legislation for years to come. So because

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Speaker 1: of that episode, we decided we wanted to take a

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Speaker 1: look at some other famous fire and just look at

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Speaker 1: some of the parallels between them. Look at some of

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Speaker 1: those little split second decisions and how that might be

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Speaker 1: the same in one fire that takes place in the

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Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds and then one take one that takes place

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Speaker 1: in the eighteen hundreds, and then just see how they're

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Speaker 1: different too exactly. And we're also going to take a

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Speaker 1: look at the pre fire environment some parallels there. I mean,

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Speaker 1: we saw on the Triangle Factory how it was really

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Speaker 1: set up for disaster in a lot of ways, with

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Speaker 1: the cotton scraps lying around, and the really crowded environment

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Speaker 1: and people just generally ignoring signs of danger that we're

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Speaker 1: there to begin with. So the first fire on our

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Speaker 1: list that we're gonna take a look at is the

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Speaker 1: Great Fire of London, a very famous one, and like

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Speaker 1: the Triangle Factory fire, the situation here was really just

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Speaker 1: ripe for disaster. Fires weren't unusual in London in the

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Speaker 1: first place in the sixteen hundreds, since timber construction and

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Speaker 1: narrow streets were really the norm at the time. So

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Speaker 1: by September of sixteen sixty six, a long, hot summer

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Speaker 1: had made matters even worse. It was a dry out

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Speaker 1: both the city and its water reserves, and according to

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Speaker 1: the BBC, some people had actually seen this coming. Some

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Speaker 1: people had warned of the possibility of a major fire

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Speaker 1: in London even before it got to this point, but

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Speaker 1: most citizens at the time had something else on their minds,

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Speaker 1: right Sarah Plague. Yes, Plague at that time had killed

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Speaker 1: about sixty eight thousand people in the years leading up

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Speaker 1: to sixteen sixty six, so they were worried about it,

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Speaker 1: with understandable that that would be your top concern at

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Speaker 1: the time. So when the Great Fire did start on

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Speaker 1: September two, sixteen sixty six, started in Putting Lane near

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Speaker 1: London Bridge, and it was in the home of the

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Speaker 1: King's baker, Thomas Farnore, and a workman had smelled smoke

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Speaker 1: around two in the morning and told the baker's family,

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Speaker 1: and they had all managed to escape by fleeing over

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Speaker 1: the roofs, and their maid was too scared to leave,

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Speaker 1: and so she became the first casualty and this fire,

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Speaker 1: even though you're gonna probably be surprised to learn that

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Speaker 1: very few people died in this fire, considering how disastrous

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Speaker 1: it was, she was too scared to get out of

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Speaker 1: the house. Yes, the house was quickly engulfed in flames,

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Speaker 1: and from there the fire spread through the narrow streets

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Speaker 1: of London. But the Mayor, Sir Thomas Bloodworth, for some reason,

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Speaker 1: really wasn't that concerned at first. He was woken up

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Speaker 1: about an hour after it started, and after being awoken

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Speaker 1: he said a woman might piss it out of the fire.

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Speaker 1: That was the colorful statement he makes. So it kept

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Speaker 1: spreading from there, and London Bridge was burning by dawn.

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Speaker 1: So just to give you a little understanding of how

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Speaker 1: they fought fires in this time, or one of the

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Speaker 1: ways they fought fires, they would build firebreaks or create

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Speaker 1: firebreaks by destroying buildings in a fire's path so that

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Speaker 1: it didn't have anything to spread to. It would just

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Speaker 1: be brought to a sudden halt. And the strategy had

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Speaker 1: been used in a fire in sixteen thirty two on

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Speaker 1: London Bridge and it created this open space that ended

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Speaker 1: up saving the bridge in sixteen sixty six, so that

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Speaker 1: the fire was confined to one part of the city.

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Speaker 1: It couldn't jump the river, but it continued to just

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Speaker 1: get word and worse on the westward side of the city,

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Speaker 1: and it was fanned by the wind. And the mayor

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Speaker 1: kept on hesitating though about the fire breaks, So even

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Speaker 1: though they were tested it seemed to work, he wasn't

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Speaker 1: willing to order a bunch of buildings blown up. And

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Speaker 1: I think what that came down to was just the

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Speaker 1: cost of it. It was going to cost so much

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Speaker 1: to rebuild those buildings, and that's why he was so

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Speaker 1: hesitant about it. But King Charles the Second fils a

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Speaker 1: little differently. He did want those fire breaks, but by

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Speaker 1: the time that he ordered the mayor to destroy as

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Speaker 1: many buildings as possible to make that happen, the fire

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Speaker 1: was already too out of control for that strategy to

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Speaker 1: really work. They would destroy houses too late, or the

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Speaker 1: wind would just help the fire jump over the gap

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Speaker 1: that they made, And if you destroy the houses too late,

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Speaker 1: you're just creating tinder. Essentially. Yeah, because it was all

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Speaker 1: right if they didn't have time to clear it out

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Speaker 1: before the fire got to it, they were actually kind

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Speaker 1: of helping it along. So the fire raged on for

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Speaker 1: three days. By Wednesday it finally started to die down,

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Speaker 1: and then by Thursday it was extinguished. Flames did spring

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Speaker 1: up again briefly at Temple Church, but the Duke of

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Speaker 1: York made kind of a quick, split second decision there

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Speaker 1: to blow up several buildings at once with gunpowder and

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Speaker 1: create a firebreak right away, so they were able to

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Speaker 1: squelch that. So the fire was out by that point,

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Speaker 1: but the damage to London was really significant. A large

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Speaker 1: part of the city had been destroyed, including a lot

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Speaker 1: of the civic buildings old St. Paul's Cathedral. I think

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Speaker 1: we mentioned that in an earlier episode on St. Paul's

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Speaker 1: that one of many times it burned down. Eight seven

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Speaker 1: parish churches had burned in about thirteen thousand, two hundred

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Speaker 1: houses and according to the BBC, though only four official

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Speaker 1: deaths were reported, but some people think that the actual

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Speaker 1: death toll might have been a lot higher than that.

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Speaker 1: But regardless of the number of people that died, it

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Speaker 1: affected thousands of citizens, somewhere around one sixth of London's population,

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Speaker 1: and they had to flee to places like Hampstead and

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Speaker 1: Highgate and more Fields, which was that last one was

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Speaker 1: the chief refuge I think. And within days they started

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Speaker 1: putting together plans to rebuild the city, and Christopher Wrant

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Speaker 1: and of all people, got involved with this rebuilding plan

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Speaker 1: and presented plans to sort of remake the city, regularized

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Speaker 1: the streets and um even though they stuck to old

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Speaker 1: lines in most cases. They didn't just change the map

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Speaker 1: of the city entirely. They broadened a lot of the

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Speaker 1: streets and built houses out of brick instead of these

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Speaker 1: sort of rough and tumble wooden houses that caught fire

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Speaker 1: so easily. Yeah, but it didn't stop there. Like the

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Speaker 1: Triangle shirtwaist factory incident, everyone was looking for someone to

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Speaker 1: blame after this. It wasn't just a simple rebuilding. They

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Speaker 1: wanted somebody to take the blame. So a parliamentary committee

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Speaker 1: investigated the incident, but they couldn't find that it was

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Speaker 1: anything other than a quote act of God. Even though

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Speaker 1: a French watchmaker confessed to the crime and was executed

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Speaker 1: for it, nobody really believed he did it, so people

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Speaker 1: were still kind of always coming up with theories of

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Speaker 1: what could have happened, especially since this was a time

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Speaker 1: of political and religious upheaval. People pointed finger at foreigners

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Speaker 1: a lot, and to Catholics for years. In fact, a

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Speaker 1: monument that commemorated the fire born inscription blaming quote to

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Speaker 1: the treachery and the malice of the Popish faction until

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Speaker 1: eight thirty one, when we can presume somebody sort of

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Speaker 1: chiseled it off discreetly or something. But um, it seems

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Speaker 1: a little strange that there would even be a blame

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Speaker 1: game if the fire starts in a bakery. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it seems like a place where a fire accident could

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Speaker 1: easily happen. Yeah, I agree, and I think most people

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Speaker 1: accept that it was probably just the result of carelessness

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Speaker 1: on the part of the baker or has made someone

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Speaker 1: in the household, and we can rely on that at

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Speaker 1: this point. All right, So our next fuire might also

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Speaker 1: be the result of carelessness, but no one's entirely sure.

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Speaker 1: It is a fire that happened in Japan in sixteen

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Speaker 1: fifty seven, and the Mayaiki Fire or the Great Fire

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Speaker 1: of Mayoraiki, and Japan's of course been in the news

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Speaker 1: a lot lately, and a lot of people have probably

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Speaker 1: heard of the Great Canto earthquake of nineteen twenty three,

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Speaker 1: and it was a noon earthquake, which meant lots of

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Speaker 1: cooking fires were going and so a big fire started

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Speaker 1: across Tokyo and killed and estimated one thousand people. But

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Speaker 1: before Tokyo was even Tokyo, back when it was still

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Speaker 1: a do this fire took place, and it was the

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Speaker 1: center of power for the Tokugawa Shogunate, and the fire

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Speaker 1: was just as deadly way back in sixteen fifty seven,

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Speaker 1: a hundred thousand people were killed. Yeah, And considering how

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Speaker 1: many people were killed in that fire, it might be

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Speaker 1: especially surprising to learn that Edo had actually been a

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Speaker 1: little fishing village just a few generations earlier in the

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Speaker 1: late sixteenth century, the showgun Tokugawa Ayasu had moved to

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Speaker 1: Pan's capital, to Edo and started a series of developments there,

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Speaker 1: and over the years the city just got bigger and bigger.

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Speaker 1: Mountains were cut down to fill in, the bay at

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Speaker 1: o'castle was rebuilt, and by sixty seven the city was

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Speaker 1: operating under something called alternate attendance. Yeah, the alternative attendant system.

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Speaker 1: And if you're trying to to think of what this is,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of like a protoversi. Almost all the daimio

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Speaker 1: or lords had to live in the capital part time,

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Speaker 1: and when they weren't there, when they were back on

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Speaker 1: their own estates, they had to leave some of their

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Speaker 1: family behind as collateral, sort of like, don't get up

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Speaker 1: to any trouble off in your own estates, because we

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Speaker 1: have all you care about here. So there was this

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Speaker 1: versioning elite living in ed Oh and and buying lots

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Speaker 1: of things and in need of lots of services. So

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Speaker 1: that meant a lot of regular folks were moving to

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Speaker 1: town to provide those services, merchants and entertainers and the like.

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Speaker 1: So because of all the crowding, the narrow streets and

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Speaker 1: alleys set up in this Kyoto grid style, and of

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Speaker 1: course built and lined with houses made of wood and paper,

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Speaker 1: we're sort of at risk for fires. Fires consequently did

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Speaker 1: happen a lot. Yeah, similar to the situation in London

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Speaker 1: that we just discussed. But in Japan they even called

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Speaker 1: these little fires the flowers of Edo. Yeah, just blooming

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Speaker 1: across the city from time to time. But the fire

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Speaker 1: that hit in sixteen fifty seven was the worst, and

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Speaker 1: it started in a temple. Legend has monks burning an

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Speaker 1: unlucky long sleeved kimono. Um, you'll see different accounts. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: the kimono belonged to several young girls who died before

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Speaker 1: they could wear it. Sometimes there were a couple kimonos,

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Speaker 1: each having belonged to a girl who died. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: this gives us the fire's other name, which was the

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Speaker 1: furisode fire or long sleeves fire. You might hear it

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Speaker 1: referred to that way. So strong winds from there carried

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Speaker 1: the fire across moats and canals, and then the wind

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Speaker 1: shifted and the fire burned the shops along the Sumida River. Supposedly,

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Speaker 1: an unattended cooking fire in a Samurai household helped feed

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Speaker 1: it further too, so it just kind of grew. Sixty

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Speaker 1: percent of the city was destroyed and most of ed

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Speaker 1: o'castle was destroyed. Yeah, and again, like London, the whole

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Speaker 1: thing made the feudal government really reconsider how they were

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Speaker 1: going to rebuild and whether there were improvements that could

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Speaker 1: be made before you set up a similar situation. Again,

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Speaker 1: and especially because by sixteen ninety three, so just a

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Speaker 1: few decades after this fire, the population was larger than

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Speaker 1: that of London or Paris, so you had a lot

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Speaker 1: of buildings to consider. This time, they mapped out the

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Speaker 1: city and spread the buildings out more. There were still,

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Speaker 1: of course, later fires. They didn't totally eliminate that threat,

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Speaker 1: but according to a book called an Introduction to Japanese Architecture,

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Speaker 1: this was a fairly successful attempt, early attempt at city

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Speaker 1: planning in a real turning point for the city. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and even laws that were made afterwards suggest fire consciousness.

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Speaker 1: While commoners weren't allowed the extravagance of building a third

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Speaker 1: floor in their homes, they were encouraged to use super

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Speaker 1: expensive tile roofs and kura or fire proof storehouses, so

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Speaker 1: both of those things kind of became status symbols. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so you have Sumptuary code, sort of just avoiding one avenue.

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Speaker 1: If it, if it helps make the city more fire safe,

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Speaker 1: go for it, even if even if you look impressive

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Speaker 1: doing it. Yea, it became cool to be safe. So

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Speaker 1: the first two fires we talked about are pretty well known,

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Speaker 1: but the third fire on our list is one that

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Speaker 1: got overshadowed a bit by another fire that occurred at

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Speaker 1: the same time. And we're talking about the Peshtigo Fire,

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Speaker 1: which occurred in eighteen seventy one, sometimes called the Great

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Speaker 1: Peshtigo Fire. Took place obviously in Pestigo, Wisconsin, and it

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Speaker 1: has the distinction of being the deadliest fire in US history.

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Speaker 1: But the reason it's not as well known as some

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Speaker 1: other incidents is because it occurred on the same night

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Speaker 1: as the Great Chicago Fire October eighth, eighteen seventy one.

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Speaker 1: Some people think maybe even the same hour, right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: same hour, but a bit of a more mythical beginning,

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Speaker 1: I guess, which is one reason that it might have

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Speaker 1: overshadowed Peshtigo a little bit. We actually have a podcast

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Speaker 1: on the legendary origins of the Great Chicago Fire, and

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Speaker 1: a lot of people think it was started by miss

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Speaker 1: O'Leary's cow. So if you want to learn a little

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Speaker 1: bit more about that and how true it is, you

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Speaker 1: can go back and listen to that podcast. Part of

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Speaker 1: the reason why it was overshadowed, though, is because Chicago

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Speaker 1: is a bigger city and news is going to get

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Speaker 1: out faster about a huge fire in Chicago that leaves

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Speaker 1: a lot of people dead. Yeah, Peschigo was a railroad

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Speaker 1: and lumbering town, probably not as exciting as a big

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Speaker 1: urban area like Chicago. There were about eight hundred men

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Speaker 1: who were employed by a local would wear wooden't wear

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Speaker 1: factory sorry, and to sawmills, and the town had about

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Speaker 1: one thousand, seven hundred residents total. Once again, the conditions

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Speaker 1: here were just right for a big fire. After harvesting trees,

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Speaker 1: lumberjacks would leave piles of sawdust, brush, and limbs known

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Speaker 1: as slash, all over the forest floor. To add to this,

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Speaker 1: men who cleared the land for railroads and farmers who

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Speaker 1: needed to clear the land to plant in would torch trees, umps, buildings,

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Speaker 1: basically anything in their path. So small fires were burning

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Speaker 1: around this area all the time and no one really

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Speaker 1: thought anything of it. We're cool with it pretty much,

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Speaker 1: but To make matters worse, there hadn't been that much

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Speaker 1: rain during the summer in the early fall, so the

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Speaker 1: area was especially dry. And by the first week of October,

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Speaker 1: even the air in Peshtigo along the north shore of

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Speaker 1: Green Bay was so thick with smoke from all of

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Speaker 1: these little fires from the farmers and the lumberjacks and

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Speaker 1: all of that that ships on Lake Michigan had to

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Speaker 1: navigate by compass and harbor masters you fog horns to

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Speaker 1: guide them ashore, so couldn't even see where you were going. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the environment, I guess just really set the stage for

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Speaker 1: something eerie to happen. But no one knows exactly what

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Speaker 1: started the big fire October eighth. A recent article in

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Speaker 1: History magazine, I think in the March issue, actually discussed

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Speaker 1: a couple of possibilities about that very thing. Lightning was

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Speaker 1: apparently ruled out, but because of the conditions, some people

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Speaker 1: speculate there may have been instances of spontaneous combustion on

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Speaker 1: the forest floor. Always makes a story more interesting. Absolutely.

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Speaker 1: Meteors that's another. That's another one that helps make things interesting.

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Speaker 1: Meteor showers are actually pretty common in the Upper Great

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Speaker 1: Lakes region in the fall so it's possible that chunks

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Speaker 1: of a meteor could have landed in the Wisconsin woods

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Speaker 1: and set all that tinder on fire. Yeah, and then

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Speaker 1: strong winds that night would have added to the situation,

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Speaker 1: fanning fires, causing them to combine and spread. So wind

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Speaker 1: is a major character and all of these fires that

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Speaker 1: we're talking about, and chances are even if it wasn't meteors,

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Speaker 1: even if it wasn't spontaneous combustion, just all these little

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Speaker 1: fires that had been set throughout the area. Once the

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Speaker 1: wind came through, it kind of combined and helped them

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Speaker 1: spread all over the place. But regardless of what caused

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Speaker 1: the fire, around nine that night, there was an eerie

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Speaker 1: roaring sound and then the fire just seemed to kind

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Speaker 1: of fall out of the sky. Yeah, And and the

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Speaker 1: wind really fed the flames, kept on feeding them, so

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Speaker 1: it seemed like the air itself was on fire. People

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Speaker 1: tried to outrun it, but they couldn't and some were

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Speaker 1: burned in the streets. And the really strange thing here

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Speaker 1: is it would seem like they were far away from

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Speaker 1: anything that was combustible. They weren't standing near the burning

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Speaker 1: building or the burning tree or something like that. They

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Speaker 1: just would suddenly ignite. Yeah. I mean, it's like the

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Speaker 1: witnesses said, the fire was almost in the air. And

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Speaker 1: that's what's so scary about this one. Some sought refuge

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Speaker 1: lying flat and clearings, or in the water of rivers,

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Speaker 1: or in Green Bay, so they would actually get in

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Speaker 1: the river and kind of hold their breath and only

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Speaker 1: come up for air to try to avoid catching on fire.

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Speaker 1: Other people hid in cellars, which wasn't a good idea

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Speaker 1: because they suffocated. Some people hid in wells and in

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Speaker 1: ponds as well. So the flames just kept on spreading.

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Speaker 1: They traveled over marshland, and you might think that that

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Speaker 1: would put it out because there's lots of water in

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Speaker 1: marshy areas, but instead it would just ignite rising gases.

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Speaker 1: And from there the flames were able to cross the

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Speaker 1: Peshtigo River and jump the waters of Green Bay and

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Speaker 1: Lake Michigan. So from there the fire spread into other

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Speaker 1: Wisconsin communities, including the Door and Kiawantee Counties. It also

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Speaker 1: spread into Michigan. It destroyed at least seventeen communities total,

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Speaker 1: and Pestigo itself was obliterated in just an hour. And

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Speaker 1: we saw that in I think the Triangle Factory fire too.

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Speaker 1: How quickly things seemed to happen. Yeah, so the fire

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Speaker 1: just kept on basically until it had nothing left to burn.

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Speaker 1: I think again, the winds have so much power. The

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Speaker 1: winds changed and kind of turned the fire back on itself.

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Speaker 1: But by that time it had already killed somewhere between

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Speaker 1: one thousand, two hundred and two thousand, five hundred people

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Speaker 1: eight hundred and Peshtigo alone and destroyed about one point

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Speaker 1: three million acres of forest land. So that's an area

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Speaker 1: about twice the size of Rhode Islands. And by contrast,

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Speaker 1: three hundred people were killed in the Chicago fire, so

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Speaker 1: way those numbers together. But by the time the word

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Speaker 1: of all of this reached Madison, it took two days

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Speaker 1: to do so. The governor and the state representatives had

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Speaker 1: all gone to help out with the Chicago crisis because

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Speaker 1: of course, that news had broken long before and everybody

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Speaker 1: knew about it. And consequently, the Pestigo fire didn't really

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Speaker 1: get as much notoriety as Chicago, but it did lead

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Speaker 1: to some new forest management programs and lumber harvesting techniques. Again,

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Speaker 1: a few sort of social reforms or fire safety reforms

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Speaker 1: coming out of a big disaster. The last fire on

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Speaker 1: our list is one that listeners will probably be most

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Speaker 1: familiar with, at least from a visual standpoint, because it's

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Speaker 1: the most recent one, and that's the Great San Francisco

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Speaker 1: earthquake and fire. And to talk about this one, we've

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Speaker 1: of course got to talk about the earthquake a little bit,

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Speaker 1: I think definitely. So at five twelve am on April eighteenth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen o six, a four shock shook the people of

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Speaker 1: San Francisco awake in their beds, and about twenty seconds

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Speaker 1: later the shaking started again, except it was a lot

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Speaker 1: harder this time, and it drove people out into the

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Speaker 1: streets if they could get out of their houses. Lasted

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Speaker 1: for nearly a minute, which seems like such a long

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Speaker 1: time to be just waiting for your house to fall

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Speaker 1: down or not around you. The famous tenor and Rico Caruso,

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Speaker 1: for example, was in town. He had just performed a

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Speaker 1: big show the night before, and he described it like

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Speaker 1: being on a boat at sea. If you can imagine

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Speaker 1: how shaky that is. I'm sure some of you have

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Speaker 1: probably been an earthquake, so you can't imagine it. But

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Speaker 1: while the seven point nine magnitude earthquake could be felt

380
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Speaker 1: as far away as central Nevada and southern Los Angeles.

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Speaker 1: It was San Francisco that really got hit the hardest. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: buildings collapsed. Weak masonry on the sides of homes kind

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Speaker 1: of flopped off in sheets into the street, exposing dollhouse

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Speaker 1: like apartments. Chimneys fell in on otherwise dirty wooden houses, structures,

385
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Speaker 1: and formally marshy areas were just swallowed up in sinkholes. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's a famous four story hotel that was swallowed up

387
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Speaker 1: to the fourth floor and it just looks collapse. It's

388
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Speaker 1: like a slinky sitting next to other buildings that are

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Speaker 1: still their full height. Um And probably most importantly for

390
00:21:06,320 --> 00:21:09,560
Speaker 1: our story, gas lines broke. But within half an hour,

391
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Speaker 1: the city's fire department had been They had responded to

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Speaker 1: fifty two fire alarms, and they seemed to be keeping pace.

393
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Speaker 1: They seemed to be putting out these little fires, keeping

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Speaker 1: things under control. But the fires just grew and they merged,

395
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Speaker 1: and they spread by dry wind from two main origin points,

396
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Speaker 1: and one was the south of Market neighborhood and the

397
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Speaker 1: other was north of Market Street near the waterfront. But

398
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Speaker 1: because the water mains had been broken, during the earthquake,

399
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Speaker 1: the department didn't have that much to work with. They

400
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Speaker 1: could put out these tiny fires, but when they were

401
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Speaker 1: faced with these these growing walls of flame, there wasn't

402
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Speaker 1: much they could do about it. Yeah, I think they

403
00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:52,280
Speaker 1: only had eight fifty thousand gallons of water to use.

404
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Speaker 1: So the alternate options they had were what they had

405
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Speaker 1: to turn to, but those weren't really great. One of

406
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Speaker 1: the alternate options was that they could tap old cisterns. Now,

407
00:22:01,520 --> 00:22:03,760
Speaker 1: those didn't have much water, so that was why that

408
00:22:03,840 --> 00:22:05,760
Speaker 1: wasn't a great option. And the second option that they

409
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Speaker 1: had was to have navy ships pump water in from

410
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Speaker 1: the bay, and that was kind of slow. So yeah,

411
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Speaker 1: both these were slow and they didn't really get them

412
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Speaker 1: that much water either. So to make matters worse, Fire

413
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Speaker 1: Chief Dennis Sullivan had been mortally wounded during the earthquake.

414
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Speaker 1: He had had a master plan for a fire in

415
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Speaker 1: San Francisco, and his replacement didn't. Yeah, so they didn't

416
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Speaker 1: have some sort of operating idea of what to do,

417
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Speaker 1: and things got more and more desperate, and the department's

418
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Speaker 1: next move, after tapping the cisterns and pumping in the water,

419
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Speaker 1: was to use dynamite to create fire breaks, and we've

420
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Speaker 1: learned the danger of fire breaks already in this episode,

421
00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:47,240
Speaker 1: but this is kind of an even worse situation. The

422
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Speaker 1: army base sent the wrong kind of explosive flammable black gunpowder,

423
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Speaker 1: and the explosives really just made things worse. So exploding

424
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Speaker 1: buildings would shoot off debris everywhere, which would ignite at

425
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Speaker 1: ruptured gas lines. And then the other thing that would

426
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Speaker 1: happen is sturdy walls that really might have helped actually

427
00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:11,840
Speaker 1: service fire breaks were destroyed and brought to brought to

428
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Speaker 1: the ground and rubble. So later that day other blazes

429
00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:18,280
Speaker 1: joined the wall of the main fire. They were judged

430
00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:20,760
Speaker 1: at one point to be nearly twenty floors high and

431
00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:24,560
Speaker 1: two thousand degrees. One started in Hayes Valley from a

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00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:28,760
Speaker 1: damaged chimney, and another one started at the restaurant Delmonicos

433
00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:31,359
Speaker 1: from a soldier's camp fire. And at that point the

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00:23:31,400 --> 00:23:34,040
Speaker 1: mayor ordered martial law. Yeah, and you can you can

435
00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:37,679
Speaker 1: look at the order the proclamation, and it came out

436
00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:40,879
Speaker 1: not long after after the earthquakes. Of course, people are

437
00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 1: still totally in a state of shock, and there's some

438
00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:47,800
Speaker 1: practical advice like don't use your damaged chimney. But way

439
00:23:47,880 --> 00:23:51,720
Speaker 1: at the top it says will shoot to kill all looters,

440
00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:54,399
Speaker 1: and I think people were a little disturbed by that,

441
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:57,080
Speaker 1: and it was something that got a lot of criticism

442
00:23:57,200 --> 00:24:00,880
Speaker 1: after the fact. But by Friday night the fire finally

443
00:24:01,119 --> 00:24:04,000
Speaker 1: started to die down and it was over by Saturday.

444
00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:07,320
Speaker 1: But by that point four point seven square miles of

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00:24:07,359 --> 00:24:11,600
Speaker 1: San Francisco had been burned, five d eight city blocks,

446
00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:15,960
Speaker 1: and with so much destruction, you would think that maybe

447
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:19,119
Speaker 1: the large death toll three thousand to five thousand people

448
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 1: where the result of the fire as well as the earthquake.

449
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:24,800
Speaker 1: But most of the deaths did occur during the earthquake

450
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:28,000
Speaker 1: because there's not much you can do when when something

451
00:24:28,040 --> 00:24:31,080
Speaker 1: strikes and you're at home in bed, Whereas the fire

452
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:33,320
Speaker 1: people could see it coming and they had time to

453
00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:36,720
Speaker 1: grab what they could and and get out, whether by

454
00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:40,440
Speaker 1: ferry or or just going to other parts of the city. Yeah,

455
00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:44,280
Speaker 1: some people had to relocate a multiple times. Chinese refugees,

456
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:46,359
Speaker 1: for example, who stayed in the city were forced to

457
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:50,600
Speaker 1: relocate over and over. Yeah, so they faced some persecution there,

458
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:53,480
Speaker 1: although not the ones who had fled to Oakland. Interestingly,

459
00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:56,520
Speaker 1: but um just if there's so much out there on

460
00:24:56,600 --> 00:24:58,600
Speaker 1: this fire if you want to learn a little bit

461
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 1: more about it or look at pictures. You mentioned when

462
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:03,920
Speaker 1: we first started talking about it that it's a very

463
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:07,879
Speaker 1: visual earthquake and fire. There's a great Smithsonian story with

464
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:12,480
Speaker 1: color photos. Actually it was a year before color photography

465
00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:15,520
Speaker 1: was commercially available. It's kind of strange to look at

466
00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:19,040
Speaker 1: a color pictures from nineteen o six. There's another interesting

467
00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:22,840
Speaker 1: Smithsonian story about the men who stayed behind to defend

468
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 1: the San Francisco meant and protect three hundred million dollars

469
00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 1: that was kept inside it, which is the equivalent of

470
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 1: six billion dollars today and had would have had a

471
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:35,040
Speaker 1: pretty tremendous effect on the economy potentially if that had

472
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 1: all been lost. But they stayed right in the path

473
00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:41,000
Speaker 1: of the fire and used well water, i think, to

474
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:44,520
Speaker 1: defend the building and it was stood the fire and

475
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 1: became sort of a a memorial to the fire for

476
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:50,240
Speaker 1: the city of San Francisco because it was one of

477
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 1: the few buildings that had survived. And today it's even

478
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:56,400
Speaker 1: in the process of becoming the museum of the City

479
00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:00,200
Speaker 1: of San Francisco, so you can potentially go visit at

480
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:03,280
Speaker 1: this hallowed site of the fire at some point, and

481
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:06,240
Speaker 1: you can check out their website now too. That's where

482
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:09,640
Speaker 1: I found the Crusoe quote. They have all sorts of

483
00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:19,160
Speaker 1: survivors accounts. Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday.

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00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:21,480
Speaker 1: Since this episode is out of the archive, if you

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00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 1: heard an email address or a Facebook U r L

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00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:26,000
Speaker 1: or something similar over the course of the show, that

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00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:30,160
Speaker 1: could be obsolete now. Our current email address is History

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00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:34,440
Speaker 1: Podcast at i heart radio dot com. Our old house

489
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:37,640
Speaker 1: stuff works email address no longer works, and you can

490
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 1: find us all over social media at missed in History

491
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 1: and you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts,

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00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 1: Google Podcasts, the I heart Radio app, and wherever else

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00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts. Stuff You Missed in History Class

494
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:56,440
Speaker 1: is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts

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00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 1: from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple

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Speaker 1: podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H