Why Is It Called The Great Fire Of 1906

On April 18, 1906 at 5:12 AM a earthquake and fire developed in San Francisco that only lasted seconds, but yet it destroyed ¾ of the city including 300,000 homes and 38,000 buildings at the end. Much of the destruction that day was caused by the fire that the earthquake started that is why people today call it “the great Fire of 1906.”
During the earthquake the head of the city’s fire department passed away when the chimney of his home collapsed on top of him. In addition to this tragic incident the fire department lost almost all of its water due to the tremor snapping the water mains deep in the ground. Lastly, all communication and alarms went down because of the quake. Unfortunately, the firefighters couldn’t even get to many people
Many people were forced from their homes with nothing except their clothes. Since there was such a rush to leave nobody locked their house doors so troops were also assigned the job of protecting homes. As another job soldiers had to blow up buildings in the path of the fire using dynamite to cause a firebreak, but most of them backfired by prematurely exploding causing even more fire to spread to buildings and other areas that weren’t on fire before. As the troops were protecting homes from criminals they stopped many possible looters, but at the same time they accidentally captured innocent people that were trying to get to their possessions before they were destroyed. Also it was believed that some troops were stealing valuables for themselves from the homes that they were guarding. Another part of the city called Telegraph Hill was not affected at all because they diminished the flames one at a time with San francisco's bay water, brooms, red wine, blankets, or anything else they could use. They eventually got rid of all of the flames in the