Four and one-half miles one way the fire travelled, then four and one-half miles the other it burned its devastating way. Behind it in its path of ruin were only cracked granite walls, twisted steel girders, crumbling and broken cornices; before it, a scattering field of a few untouched buildings yet to conquer.
A Nero with an evil eye on a city’s undoing, and the power of a wicked tyrant to fulfill his sordid wish, could have been no more ruthless in his dastardly heartless methods of destruction.
When the fire was finally ended the buildings that had been burned, if placed in a row, would have extended for two hundred miles in a straight line.
Never in the world’s history has there been such a fire. The burning of ancient London was child’s play beside it. Chicago’s fire was a mere bagatelle. Never has the world read, never had the world dreamed, of such a conflagration. In days to come, grandfathers will tell of it to their grandchildren, nodding their sage old heads to emphasize the horror of it all, relating to the young people who gather about their knees, how great buildings supposed to be fire-proof crumpled up before the swirling sheets of melting flame and the entire city became a prey to the all-devouring conqueror. And this is the tragic story of proud San Francisco, cosmic-tossed and fire-beleaguered capital of the Occident.