Great Fire of 1871

The Great Fire took place 6½ years after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Equipment then was not close to the equipment we have today. Cars were not yet invented. Racing to the scene of a fire wasn’t like it is today.

By 1870, a French-invented chemical fire engine was imported to the U.S. It went to Derry, New Hampshire. Firefighters throughout the Midwest would have to rely on their steam engines and water to fight the massive conflagration that was the Great Fire.

How sophisticated was 1871 fire-fighting equipment? A few months before the Great Fires, in its June issue, Manufacturer and Builder boasts of the great steam engine advancements over equipment from "ye olden time" - (scroll down 80% to pages 139-140 and be sure to "turn the page" to see great illustrations):

Of all the numerous improvements which forcibly impress the stranger in a large city, nothing is more likely to challenge his imagination or excite his wonderment than the rapidity and certainty with which the largest and fiercest conflagrations are extinguished by the use of the great steam agent and its only superior, electricity.

One hundred and fifty years ago, the cry of  "  fire,"  even in the staid burgh of New-York, was the signal for all employments to cease, and for the whole population, from the grave burgomaster to the equally stolid youngsters who played in the gutters, to make a tumultuous rush to the scene of the conflagration. Buckets and swabs came into requisition, and the portly burgers busied themselves in endeavoring to combat the devouring element until the arrival of the engines.

The boast was premature. When "the largest and fiercest conflagrations" actually developed a few months after this article was published, men and their "modern" equipment were powerless to stop the ravenous inferno.