Young city was a tinderbox, burning six times in 18 months
Everyone knows that San Francisco was consumed by flames after the 1906 earthquake. But it’s less widely known that the city was also devastated by a succession of fires during the Gold Rush.
No fewer than six destructive conflagrations ravaged the infant city in just 18 months — the greatest number of major fires ever to strike any American city in such a short time.
Gold Rush San Francisco was a tinderbox. Most of its flimsy structures were made of canvas, oilcloth or wood, heated and lit by wood stoves and oilburning lamps, vented by primitive chimneys or flues protruding from canvas walls. Piles of combustible items were everywhere, heavy drinking and cigar smoking were common, and bad actors had ample motivation for arson.
As Roger Lotchin writes in “San Francisco 18461856,” “widespread carelessness and maliciousness” were responsible for many blazes: “Time and again, bursting camphene lamps, candles falling against curtains or fabric walls, or discarded ‘seegars’ started fires.” Add that the young city’s few cisterns were empty at low tide and that it had no organized fire department, and the won
der is that San Francisco didn’t burn down even more often than it did.
The first of the great fires struck at 5:45 on the morning of Dec. 24, 1849. It started on the east side of Portsmouth Square at a gambling “hell” called Dennison’s Exchange. A young Swiss named Theophile De Rutte left a vivid description:
“The cry of ‘Fire!’ so terrifying for the city of San Francisco built of wood and canvas, echoed in the air and spread rapidly from person to person and street to street . ... It began between Clay and Sacramento streets. This was the district of wine and vegetable stalls and also of lumber merchants. Alcohol and wood! The most voracious fire could not have sought a more potent combination!
“Fed by a strong north wind, the flames took giant strides . ... It was a horrible and yet spectacular sight. With each new rum, brandy or grog shop it devoured, the fire doubled in intensity and at the same time changed color. It resembled a superb display of Bengal lights with reds, yellows and blues, or else a giant punchbowl ignited by Satan and continuously stirred by the demons of hell.”
The fire burned 290 structures and caused $1.5 million in damage. According to Robert Graysmith in “Black Fire: The True Story of the Original Tom Sawyer — and of the Mysterious Fires That Baptized Gold RushEra San Francisco,” former New York firefighter and future U.S. Sen. David Broderick helped stop the flames by blowing up buildings with gunpowder.
But most of the transient goldseekers who made up the city’s population did not exactly cover themselves with civic glory.
In his 1850 book, “El Dorado, or Adventures in the Path of Empire,” journalist Bayard Taylor writes, “At the time of the most extreme danger, hundreds of idle spectators refused to lend a hand, unless they were paid enormous wages. One of the principal merchants, I was told, offered a dollar a bucket for water, and made use of several thousand buckets in saving his property. All the owners of property worked incessantly, and were aided by their friends, but at least five thousand spectators stood idle in the plaza.”
In what would become a pattern, rebuilding started when the ashes were still smoking, and within a month there was no sign of the damage.
The second great fire took place less than five months later, on May 4, 1850. This blaze also started on the plaza, consumed 16 blocks and 300 buildings, and caused $4 million in damage. Arsonists were suspected, and a $5,000 reward posted for information leading to their arrest, but no culprits were found.
Once again, bystanders refused to help unless they were paid. Indeed, according to historian Doris Muscatine in “Old San Francisco,” after the fire a group of men who had volunteered their services free at the time demanded that the city pay them. Fed up, the city council instead passed a law that made it obligatory for residents to fight fires, on pain of a fine of up to $100, and another requiring every household to keep six full buckets of water. The city also enacted California’s first building ordinance, which prohibited the construction of any building made of cotton cloth.
Rebuilding started even faster than after the Christmas Eve fire: “The Annals of San Francisco” reported that workers began clearing embers and rubbish away from one end of a tenement building while the other end was still blazing. “In a wonderfully short time the whole burned space was covered with new buildings, and looked as if no fire had ever been there,” the “Annals” went on, before ominously adding, “It was generally remarked that these were even more unsubstantial and inflammable than those which had just been destroyed.”
The third fire took place just six weeks later, on June 14. It started in a defective chimney in a bakery, raged for three days, consumed several hundred buildings and caused almost $5 million in losses. The fourth followed that by three months.
The fifth of the great fires was also the biggest. It broke out on May 4, 1851, the anniversary of the second, and burned the city’s entire business district. Sixteen blocks and between 1,500 and 2,000 buildings were consumed. Damage was estimated at $12 million.
The sixth blaze took place just a month later and caused $3 million in losses. This was the last of the great Gold Rushera fires — afterward, improved building materials, cisterns and firefighting techniques helped prevent further disaster.
Estimates of the combined death toll from the 18 months of fires range from 300 to more than 1,000, with most perishing in the May 4, 1851, blaze. Some unfortunates who had purchased “fireproof ” metal houses were roasted to death when the intense heat caused the houses to swell and made it impossible to open the doors.
After the first fire, it was clear that the city urgently needed a fire department. At a mass meeting in Portsmouth Square, three volunteer engine companies were organized — the start of what was to become a unique and beloved San Francisco institution. The colorful and hypercompetitive tale of the early city’s volunteer fire companies will be the subject of the next Portals.
Gary Kamiya is the author of the bestselling book “Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco,” awarded the Northern California Book Award in creative nonfiction. His new book, with drawings by Paul Madonna, is “Spirits of San Francisco: Voyages Through the Unknown City.” All the material in Portals of the Past is original for The San Francisco Chronicle. To read earlier Portals of the Past, go to sfchronicle.com/ portals. For more features from 150 years of The Chronicle’s archives, go to sfchronicle.com/vault. Email: metro@ sfchronicle.com