1845 - USA, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh

1845 July 19th. - USA, New York City: fire in a factory and subsequent explosions; 30 people died and hundreds were injured.

1849 May 17th. - USA, Missouri, St. Louis: the steamship "White Cloud" caught fire and ignited 23 other ships anchored in the harbor as well as 430 buildings, including banks, post office, newspaper buildings, and warehouses in a city of 45,000; 3 people died.

1871 October 8th. USA, Chicago Fire destroyed 17,450 buildings, killed 250 persons, $196 million damage

1871 October 8th. USA, Wisconsin, Peshtigo: 2 billion trees were lost in the fire that killed over 1,200 people

1872 November 9th. USA, Boston: 800 buildings destroyed, $75 million in damages, the fire started in downtown and spread immediately through the city. The Fire department was not able to respond in time, because all 90 fire horses were down due to an epidemic horse disease. The heavy steam engines, weighing 3 to 10 tons each, had to be pulled by hand. The delay helped the fire to destroy the buildings and let 20,000 people jobless. 13 firefighter died in the rampage, 9 of them from other communities that came to assist the Boston FD.

1904 February 7th. USA, Baltimore: downtown fire claimed no lives, but destroyed about 70 blocks of the central business district

1938, October 28th. France, Marseilles: department store "Nouvelles Galeries," fire caused a city conflagration, destroying most of the downtown areas, 73 people died

2000 May 13 Explosion of Fireworks storage facility; at least 20 people were killed and nearly 1,000 injured; hundreds of buildings were destroyed or damaged; an entire neighborhood with more was transformed into rubble and ashes

picture gallery

Final Report (pdf. 106kb)

Adobe Acrobat Reader can be downloaded from Adobe directly.