The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-04-21

ing, the Union Trust, the Emporium,
the Haywards building the st. Francis
Hotel. the new Flood building at the
old Baldwin corner, the new Paramount
Hotel, not yet completed, on the crest
of Mob HILL All these buildings, ex-
cepting the Emporium, were as nearly
fire proof throughout as the science OF
builders could make them. The EN-
porium was fre-proof only as to its
first two floors.
San Francisco, aside from the down
town business section, is city of
wooden houses-redwood which is not
highly combustible. But, wrapped in
floods of Illuminating gas from hum
dred thousand escaping vents, exposed
to al heat that must have melted stone
and steel, blown by the west wind
that sweeps in from the sea, hurried
on the DETECTED air currents that cir
Gle the high buildings and suck up in
to the valleys between the steep hills.
the flames We're carried everywhere,
spreading like a dry grass fire on the
prairie, in all directions at once. And
there was no waRr to fight the flames
on that first day-save where, at the
oONhS. Tie ire Tugs Il VIII etiIc 4sIcii n
ham could pump up salt water from
the bay
MARCH OF THE FLAMES,
Sweeping along both sides of Mar
ket street. travelling across the bust
ness heart of the city from Market
to North Beach. licking up Chinatown
on the way, and the populous Latin
quarter, destroying the factories and
machine shops and the tenements of
the very poor from Market street |
southwark to the Potrero, rolling in
waves out Suffer and Bush and Post |
and Geary and O'Farrel and Ellis and |
Eddy streets into the Western addi- |
ton, rushing in hot surges up Hayes |
street into the highlands of Hayes |
valley and across the city by the low |
sweep of Devisidero and Fillmore |
streets to the beach again, travelling |
swiftly the length of Hyde and Larkin |
and Polk streets to the highlands OF |
Russian Hill, out and away through |
the Mission, the fire does not seem to |
have been checked until it reached |
the hills of the Western Addition on |
the west, the highlands of Dolores and |
Sixteenth street in the Mission, the |
open space that is the Preside on the |
extreme north.
This is an approximate description,
from the brief cablegrams of yester- |
day, yet it follows the topography of |
the doomed city with sure knowl- |
edge. Perhaps, on the first day after |
the earthquake, the military force was |
out and dynamite and blasting powder
began to be used to stop the advancing |
fire by it's various ways.
QUICK TO ACT.
The military commandment at San
Francisco would be quick to act in
such an. emergency But in the ter |
rife heat that filed the atmosphere,
a high wind probably blowing Gre
ated by the flames if it had not arisen
of itself-as it does in the afternoon
in San Francisco-even the blasting
away of blocks would not serve to
check the flames.
That this fight against the fire con-
tinued for several days is evil
dent. The whole of the business dis
trict is described as a ruin, in which |
it is impossible to distinguish the
streets, Chinatown is gone, the hotels
are in ashes, and the newspaper offices
are burned. 1t is not even certain |
that the fire is yet under control, al
though it seems that it would have |
almost burned itself out by now. The
wharves at North Beach were on fire
at last accounts.
The burned district, extending by the
brief cabled descriptions as far out as
street and the Western Addi-
ton must cover an area of not less
than five miles square. and perhaps is
even larger than that The property
loss in that region, the destroyed |
must foot up into the hun
1reds of millions. OF the loss of life,
an estimate at this time could not
possibly be made.