Great Fire of 1901

The Great Fire of 1901 was a conflagration that occurred in Jacksonville, Florida on May 3, 1901. It was one of the worst disasters in Florida history and the third largest urban fire in the US, next to the Great Chicago Fire, and the 1906 San Francisco fire.

Fire

Origin

In 1901, Jacksonville was a city which consisted mainly of wooden buildings with wood shingled roofs. The city itself had been suffering under a prolonged drought, leaving the building exteriors across the city dry and fire-prone. At around noon on Friday, May 3, 1901, workers at the Cleaveland Fibre Factory, located on the corner of Beaver and Davis Streets, left for lunch. Several minutes later, sparks from the chimney of a nearby building started a fire in a pile of Spanish moss that had been laid out to dry. First, factory workers tried to put it out with a few buckets of water, as they had frequently done on similar occasions. However, the blaze was soon out of control due to the wind picking up out of the east. A brisk northwest wind fanned the flames, which "spread from house to house, seemingly with the rapidity that a man could walk".

Great Fire

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Great Fire of New York (1776)

The Great Fire of New York was a devastating fire that burned through the night of September 21, 1776, on the West Side of what then constituted New York City at the southern end of the island of Manhattan. It broke out in the early days of the military occupation of the city by British forces during the American Revolutionary War.

The fire destroyed about one third of the city and some unburned parts of the city were plundered. Many people believed or assumed that one or more people deliberately started the fire, for a variety of different reasons. British leaders accused revolutionaries acting within the city, and many residents assumed that one side or the other had started it. The fire had long-term effects on the British occupation of the city, which did not end until 1783.

Background

When the American Revolutionary War broke out in April 1775, the city of New York was already an important center of business, but had not yet become a sprawling metropolis. It occupied only the lower portion of the island of Manhattan, and had a population of approximately 25,000. Before the war began, the Province of New York was politically divided, with active Patriot organizations and a colonial assembly that was strongly Loyalist. After Lexington and Concord, Patriots seized control of the city, and began arresting and expelling Loyalists.