The L.A. Fires: Disasters Are an Opportunity
The fires that incinerated 80% of San Francisco in 1906 led to rebuilding that beautified the city
The Los Angeles fires are nothing compared to what happened to my hometown, San Francisco, in 1906. The earthquake is more famous, but the fires did far more damage. Over four days, 60 separate ones broke out, and 80 percent of the city — 28,000 buildings, more than twice as many as have burned in L.A. — were incinerated. The whole downtown area, including City Hall, the courts, cathedrals, theaters, banks, hotels, department stores and newspaper buildings went up in flames, as did most of the manufacturing district south of Market.
About 3,000 San Franciscans died. Looting was so rampant that the mayor issued “shoot to kill” orders to the police and the 4,000 soldiers detailed to help them.
Arson was also a factor. The big “Ham and Eggs” fire (yes, as in Los Angeles, fires got nicknames) was accidental, started by a woman cooking breakfast unaware that her chimney had collapsed. Others broke out in pharmacies and a fireworks store where combustible chemicals were stored. Some arose from broken gas lines. Some were started by the firefighters themselves as they dynamited the mansions along Van Ness Avenue to create firebreaks. (Most hydrants were dry because the quake had broken the mains.) But some were started deliberately by homeowners; California insurance companies generally covered fire damage but not earthquake damage, which created a perverse incentive to ignite fallen buildings.
(The best-known line in Lawrence W. Harris’ poem about the disaster is: “From the ferries to Van Ness, you’re a god-forsaken mess. But the damndest finest ruins, nothing more and nothing less.”)
More than 200,000 locals fled; carriages clogged the streets, the ferries to Oakland were filled. Rows of tents sprang up in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio and the western sand dunes that are now the Richmond and Sunset districts. My great-grandfather in Marin County had a small tent city on his lawn and orchards. The Army built 5,600 wooden “relief cottages” to house 16,000 homeless residents in 11 camps, some of which lasted two years. (Some of those cottages later sold for $100 each and were hauled away to become garages and even small homes.)
Despite the devastation, the rebuilding of the city had many good effects. Earthquake and fire codes were strengthened, as were insurance laws. (Outside the fire zone, many “painted lady” Victorians survived because their wood frames swayed with the tremors instead of cracking as brick buildings did.)
The city got more parks. Some blocks in the burned area were set aside as public plazas, and much larger “residence parks” became mandatory in newly built areas to the west, both for their intrinsic beauty and as firebreaks. To help the city expand, a streetcar tunnel was bored through Twin Peaks.
A beautiful City Hall, modeled on the Invalides in Paris, went up, along with a municipal library, courts, and an opera house, all centered on a large plaza. Chinatown, a warren of tenements, was rebuilt — partly at the insistence of the Empress of China — and ultimately became a lucrative tourist area. (The loss of the hall of records also benefitted some Chinese residents because immigrant workers previously threatened by the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act were able to claim citizenship for themselves and “paper children.”)
The city was so proud of its rebuilding that it held the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition to showcase it. The Marina district was created, with the Palace of Fine Arts, its duck pond and the Marina Green waterfront park.
Similar improvements, on a smaller scale, could come to Los Angeles.
For example, the Pacific Coast Highway from Santa Monica to Malibu where so many houses burned could become a public beach. (Rebuilding would be a traffic nightmare, the narrow highway could be made safer and rising seas are eventually going to take the remaining houses anyway.)
In neighborhoods that vanished, block-wide parks could be created as firebreaks. Zoning could restrict how many houses climb the vulnerable hills. Housing codes could mandate anti-ember screens under eaves and rooftop sprinklers. Tanks and reservoirs for better fire-control could be erected.
There are many opportunities to learn from this and fix the errors that led to it.
