1805. St Thomas. 900 warehouses consumed. Loss, £6,000,000.
1808. Spanish Town (Trinidad) was totally destroyed. Loss estimated at £1,500,000.
1828. Havana lost 350 houses; 2000 persons reduced to poverty.
1843. Port Republicain (Haiti). Nearly one-third of the town was burned.
Since this list was compiled, there have been further notable fires, more particularly in North America, the great conflagrations at Chicago, Baltimore and San Francisco being terrible examples. But speaking generally, these conflagrations, extensive as they were, only repeated the earlier lessons as to the necessity of combating the general negligence of the public by attaching far greater importance to the development of fire-preventive measures even than to the better organization of the fire-fighting establishments.
It may be of interest to mention notable fires in the British empire, and London in particular, during the decade 1890 to 1899:—
| Port of Spain (Trinidad) | March 4, 1895 |
| New Westminster (British Columbia) | Sept. 10, 1898 |
| Toronto (Ontario) | Jan. 6, 10, and |
| March 3, 1895 | |
| Windsor (Nova Scotia) | Oct. 17, 1897 |
| St John’s (Newfoundland) | July 8, 1892 |
| London—Charterhouse Square | Dec. 25, 1889 |
| ” St Mary Axe | July 18, 1893 |
| ” Old Bailey and Fleet Street | Nov. 15, 1893 |
| ” Tabernacle Street, Finsbury | June 21, 1894 |
| ” Bermondsey Leather Market | Sept. 13, 1894 |
| ” Bermondsey Leather Market | May 17, 1895 |
| ” Minories | Nov. 10, 1894 |
| ” South-West India Docks | Feb. 8, 1895 |
| ” Charlotte and Leonard Streets, Finsbury | June 10, 1896 |
| ” Cripplegate | Nov. 19, 1897 |
| Nottingham | Nov. 17, 1894 |
| Sheffield | Dec. 21, 1893 |
| Bradford | Nov. 30, 1896 |
| Sunderland | July 18, 1898 |
| Dublin | May 4, 1894 |
| Glasgow—Anderston Quay | Jan. 16, 1897 |
| Glasgow—Dunlop Street | April 25, 1898 |
As to fires in any one specific class of building, the extraordinary number of fires that occurred in theatres and similar places of public entertainment up to the close of the 19th century calls for mention. Since that time, however, there has been a considerable abatement in this respect, owing to the adoption of successful measures of fire prevention. A list of some 1100 fires was published by Edwin O. Sachs in 1897 (Fires at Public Entertainments), and the results of these fires analysed. They involved a recorded loss of life to the extent of 9350 souls. About half of them (584) occurred in Europe, and the remainder in other parts of the world. Since the publication of that list extraordinary efforts have been made in all countries to reduce the risk of fires in public entertainments. The only notable disaster that has occurred since was that at the Iroquois Theatre at Chicago.
The annual drain in loss of life and in property through fires is far greater than is generally realized, and although the loss of life and property is being materially reduced from year to year, mainly by the fire-preventive measures that are now making themselves felt, the annual fire wastage of the world still averages quite £50,000,000 sterling. It is extremely difficult to obtain precise data as to the fire loss, insured and uninsured, but it may be assumed that in Great Britain the annual average loss by fire, towards the end of the 19th century (say 1897), was about £17,000,000 sterling, and that this had been materially reduced by 1909 to probably somewhere about £12,000,000 sterling. This extraordinary diminution in the fire waste of Great Britain,—in spite of the daily increasing number of houses, and the increasing amount of property in buildings—is in the main owing to the fire-preventive measures, which have led to a better class of new building and a great improvement in existing structures, and further, to a greater display of intelligence and interest in general fire precautionary measures by the public.
Notable improvements in the fire service have been effected, more particularly in London and in the country towns of the south of England since 1903. The International Fire Exhibition held in 1903 at Earl’s Court, and the Fire Prevention Congress of the same year, may be said to have revolutionized thought on the subject of fire brigade organization and equipment in the British empire; but, for all that, the advance made by the fire service has not been so rapid as the development of the fire-preventive side of fire protection.