Great Seattle Fire

The Great Seattle Fire was a fire that destroyed the entire central business district of Seattle, Washington, on June 6, 1889. The fire burned for several hours, destroying 25 blocks and causing as much as $20 million in damage ($527 million in today's dollars). As a result of the fire, streets in the Pioneer Square neighborhood in Seattle were elevated 22 feet (6.7 m) above the pre-fire street level and new buildings made of wood were banned.

In the fall of 1851, the Denny Party arrived at Alki Point in what is now the state of Washington. After spending a miserable winter on the western shores of Elliott Bay, the party relocated to the eastern shores and established the settlement that would become Seattle. Early Seattle was dominated by the logging industry. The combination of a safe bay and an abundance of coniferous trees made Seattle the perfect location for shipping lumber to California. In 1852, Henry Yesler began construction of the first steam-powered mill in the Pacific Northwest. Because of the easy access to lumber, nearly every building was constructed of the affordable, but combustible timber. Additionally, because the area was at or below sea level, the fledgling town was a frequent victim of massive floods, requiring buildings to be built on wooden stilts. The town also used hollowed out scrap logs propped up on wooden braces as sewer and water pipes, increasing the combustible loading.

The spring of 1889 in Seattle had been beautiful. There had been little rain, and temperatures were consistently in the 70s Fahrenheit. Unfortunately, the unusually good weather proved to be disastrous, as the dry conditions conspired with a handful of other elements to allow for the worst fire in city history.

On the afternoon of June 6, 1889, John Back, a Swedish assistant in Victor Clairmont's woodworking shop at the corner of Front Street (now First Avenue) and Madison Avenue, was heating glue over a gasoline fire. Sometime after 2:15, the glue boiled over, caught fire, and spread to the floors, which were covered by wood chips and turpentine. He tried to put the fire out with water, but that only served to thin the turpentine and spread the fire further. Everyone got out of the building safely, and the fire department got to the fire by 2:45 pm. By that time, there was so much smoke that it was hard to find the source of the fire, and by the time it was found, the fire was out of control. At first it was assumed to have begun in the paint shop above Clairmont's woodworking shop and the Seattle newspaper erroneously ran this story the next day. The fire quickly spread to the Dietz & Mayer Liquor Store, which exploded; the Crystal Palace Saloon; and the Opera House Saloon. Fueled by immense amounts of alcohol, the entire block from Madison to Marion was on fire.

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