At 5:12 AM on the morning of April 18, 1906, San Francisco was struck by one of the worst earthquakes ever recorded, a disaster that instantly killed hundreds and leveled large sections of the city. The quake has become a watershed event in American history, yet with the passage of time its drama has overshadowed the even greater calamity to which it gave rise: the fires that broke out as the result of toppling chimneys, broken flues, and severed gas lines. These blazes burned for days and were ultimately responsible for the deaths of as many as 3,000 people, the destruction of more than 500 blocks and 28,000 buildings, and the dislocation of some 200,000 residents. Dennis Smith recounts the three terrible days of the tragedy with an almost cinematic immediacy, tracing the drama through the experiences of a number of people who lived it: a valiant naval officer who helped save the city's piers and warves, the corrupt mayor, a firefighter who witnessed firsthand the staggering intensity of the fires, the woman who ran a shelter in Chinatown, and the army general who took command of the city and inadvertently placed the city and its people at even greater risk. Smith reveals how San Francisco's corrupt municipal government had paid little heed to the warnings of its fire chief about the inadequacies of the public water system, a failing that would leave the city particularly vulnerable to spreading blazes. Once the fires began, a number of decisions made by the emergency leadership not only proved ineffective but actually exacerbated the situation. Dynamiting to create fire breaks became, in the hands of amateurs, a dangerous incendiary, while the enforced evacuation of many of the city's neighborhoods deprived them of a volunteer fire brigade, desperate to save their own homes. But the most drastic measure -- the declaration of martial law and posting of militia with shoot-to-kill orders against looters -- turned out to be the most damaging of all as it led to senseless death and the demoralizing of an already overwhelmed populace. This account captures the violence of these days, the confusion and panic, the sense many held that the world was coming to an end, and the heroism that saved scores of lives and the great American city.
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