The Great Baltimore Fire raged in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, on Sunday, February 7, and Monday, February 8, 1904. 1,231 firefighters were required to bring the blaze under control, both professional paid Truck and Engine companies from the city's B.C.F.D. and volunteers from the surrounding counties and outlying towns of Maryland, plus the out-of-state units arriving on the major railroads. It destroyed a major part of central Baltimore, including over 1,500 buildings covering an area of some 140 acres. From North Howard Street in the west and southwest, the flames spread north through the retail shopping area as far as Fayette Street and began moving eastward pushed along by the prevailing winds. Narrowly missing the new 1900 Circuit Courthouse, passed the historic Battle Monument Square from 1815-27 at North Calvert Street, and the quarter-century old Baltimore City Hall on Holliday Street; and finally further east to the Jones Falls stream which divided the downtown business district from the old East Baltimore tightly-packed residential neighborhoods of Jonestown and newly-named "Little Italy". The wide swath of the Fire burned as far south to the wharves and piers lining the north side of the old "Basin" of the Northwest Branch of the Baltimore Harbor and Patapsco River facing along Pratt Street . It is believed to be the third worst conflagration to affect an American city in history, surpassed only by the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906. Other major urban disasters that were comparable were the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and most recently, Hurricane Katrina that hit New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico coast in August 2005. Wikipedia [ - ]

The Great Baltimore Fire raged in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, on Sunday, February 7, and... [ + ]