San Francisco Earthquake and Great Fire

April 18 - Day 1 HERE.
April 19 - Day 2 HERE.

By 5 am on the third day, the fire had burned as far as Franklin Street and started to circle south.

At the foot of Van Ness Avenue, 16 enlisted men and two officers from the “U.S.S. Chicago” supervised the rescue of 20-30 thousand refugees fleeing the Great Fire. It was the largest evacuation by sea in history.

The impromptu flotilla evacuated the refugees to
Sausalito across the Golden Gate.
(Painting by eyewitness William Alexander Coulter)

Novelist Jack London later penned his experiences in the city during the fire.  He told:

The great stand of the fire-fighters was made Thursday night on Van Ness Avenue. Had they failed here, the comparatively few remaining houses of the city would have been swept. Here were the magnificent residences of the second generation of San Francisco nabobs, and these, in a solid zone, were dynamited down across the path of the fire. Here and there the flames leaped the zone, but these fires were beaten out, principally by the use of wet blankets and rugs.

(view of Chinatown)

On Mission Street lay a dozen steers, in a neat row stretching across the street just as they had been struck down by the flying ruins of the earthquake. The fire had passed through afterward and roasted them. The human dead had been carried away before the fire came. At another place on Mission Street I saw a milk wagon. A steel telegraph pole had smashed down sheer through the driver’s seat and crushed the front wheels. The milk cans lay scattered around. 

Horses killed by falling wall

Jack London further reported:  “Friday night saw the flames finally conquered. Though not until Russian Hill and Telegraph Hill had been swept and three-quarters of a mile of wharves and docks had been licked up.”

“An hour later I was creeping past the shattered dome of the City Hall. Than it there was no better exhibit of the destructive force of the earthquake. Most of the stone had been shaken from the great dome, leaving standing the naked framework of steel. Market Street was piled high with the wreckage, and across the wreckage lay the overthrown pillars of the City Hall shattered into short crosswise sections.”
( Jack London)

Captain Charles Cullen of Engine Co. 6 wrote in his report:

Immediately after the first shake of the earthquake the doors of our Engine House [311 Sixth between Folsom and Shipley streets], shook open and all of our horses ran out into the street and escaped. It was with great difficulty that we got our apparatus out of the station, the floor being parted in the middle and the back of the house settled about three feet or more

The old familiar cry of fire was heard and turning our eyes from our work we beheld threatening flames rising from different directions. My crew was then divided into two squads; one half to fight the flames and the other half immediately proceeded to remove the people injured in their homes. We then proceeded to clean away a perfect net of electric wires which had fallen into the streets. Coupling our Engine to the hydrant located on Sixth St., between Folsom and Clementina streets, we found it impossible to obtain any water from this hydrant and our Engineer not abandoning all hopes of obtaining it, made connections and succeeded in drafting the water left in this broken main. We immediately coupled on another line, and our combined efforts were awarded by being able to stop the fire from crossing Sixth St. 

8:30 pm  Gen. Funston wired the War Department on status of the fire. He advised that Fort Mason has been saved, and some looters have been shot. His telegram said most casualties are in the poorer districts, South of Market St.; not many killed in better portion of the city.  He then issued General Orders No. 37 which placed Lt. Col. George Torney of the Medical Department in full control of sanitation in San Francisco.

This video shows more earthquake and fire ruins and an early tent city set up at one of the city parks.  Click to play the film.

The next film taken later in the week shows the continuing exodus of refugees at the ferry terminal and the beginnings of the reconstruction of the trolley lines.

Tomorrow:  With the fire finally out, housing and feeding the refugees begins in earnest. (HERE)

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