San Francisco Fire of 1906
San Francisco suffered its arguably most famous earthquake – estimated to have reached up to 8.3 on the Richter scale – on April 18, 1906. The earthquake and its several aftershocks severely damaged the city, but it was the fires which followed in its wake which made it one of the greatest natural disasters to ever strike the continental United States. Up to 90% of the total damage suffered by the city came from the fires which began within minutes, in over thirty locations around the area and burned for more than four days.
Some fires began as the result of efforts to fight existing fires with dynamite, others occurred from more mundane causes such as spilled cooking fires. Gas mains, broken by the earthquake, ignited in several parts of the city at once, frequently within buildings already damaged by the tremors. These burst into flame, with more than 25,000 structures being ultimately destroyed by the fires. Water mains, similarly damaged, were incapable of providing pressure sufficient to fight the fires, which in any case could not be extinguished as long as gas continued to flow.
The firefighters were left in many cases without leadership due to the severe injuries sustained by Chief Dennis Sullivan, who died while the fires were still burning. Troops from the nearby Presidio were sent to control looting and to assist in controlling the fires.
The army built housing camps to provide temporary shelter for those displaced by the damage, at one time sheltering over 16,000 people. Almost the entire population of the Mission District was displaced as a result of the fires following the earthquake.
Before the fires were extinguished, mostly by burning themselves out, they caused additional damage to the stricken city in the amount of just under $9 billion in 2017 dollars. Some of this damage has long been suspected of being attributed to fire rather than the earthquake because insurers of the day covered the former, but not the latter.