Some Fire History!

Just did a post a few days ago about home fires and what you need to do  to prepare for such a terrible event, in regard to your insurance. It did get me thinking about other aspects of home fires and there are some interesting historical facts about man's relationship to fire and the negative aspects when carelessness enters the picture.

Charred bones and wood ash indicate that early hominids were tending the first intentional fires more than 400,000 years ago.

There's a saying that "fire makes a good servant but a bad master". Despite our many years of practice at using fire, historically there have been many devastating incidents which demonstrate the latter. Today, this has been greatly lessened due to better building codes and construction material, the advent of fire response crews and equipment, but unfortunately there are still occurrences daily across our country and the rest of the world. 

In 587 BC, fire destroyed the Temple and city of Jerusalem. In 406, fire destroyed much of Constantinople and again in the year 532 wiped out most of the city. In Hangzou China 13,000 homes were destroyed in a fire in 1132 and 5 years later another fire burned out 10,000 homes. 

In 1666, a huge fire burned 80% of London England and destroyed 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, St Paul's Cathedral and most of the buildings of the City authorities, affecting 70,000 people in a city of 80,000.

Two deadly fires broke out in the U.S. on exactly the same day, Oct 8 1871. One in Chicago, Illinois and one in Peshtigo Wisconsin. The latter killed 1200 people.

In our own country there have been multiple cases of conflagrations that caused loss of life and severe damage to property. A fire in Montreal in 1852 leaves a 5th of the population homeless, one in St.John New Brunswick destroys 1600 homes in 1877, and the Great Vancouver fire in 1886 wipes out all but 3 buildings in the city. In 1904 a fire burned 64 downtown building in Toronto and put 5000 people out of work.

Of course, everyone can remember the horrific fire that killed 43 people in Lac Megantic, Quebec, when a train pulling oil tankers rolled into the town and crashed, exploding in a ball of flames and burning the centre of town.However, most of the deadliest fires in recent history in Canada have been related to forest fires, such as one in Salmon Arm, B.C. in 1998, or Slave Lake in 2011. Some of these were naturally occurring fires, like lightning strikes, some caused by carelessness, like campfires, and some are 'arson known'. Of course, they all cause major problems, burn thousands of hectares of land, cause smoke related  health issues, evacuations and loss of homes, and cost millions to combat.