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Great Fire of Toronto in 1904 video clip

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[flv]http://www.toronto.ca/fire/news/100/images/fire_1904.swf[/flv]

I haven’t been a fan of the Toronto Star’s recent addition of comments to their regular articles. Much like the Globe and Mail, the comments seem to be a place for personal attacks on other commenters or at the writer of the article. Spacing is lucky to have a respectable readership that uses our comment section — for the most part — to engage in a debate or conversation (thank you, loyal readers and commenters).

But, I still read the Star readers’ comments anyway, hoping to find reasonable commentary. In the case of an article on Toronto’s Great Fire of 1904, a reader provided a link to the City’s website with a video clip from the blaze. I was totally unaware that any film of the historic event had been captured — I’ve only seen the historic photos often used in books or displayed at the city’s Archives building. What I find most charming is the amount of cyclists riding on the street and the folks running on foot behind the fire “engines.”

I say this with my tongue firmly planted in cheek, but I wonder if the fire department in those days told the city it could or couldn’t build a road to a certain width because they wouldn’t be able to get their horse-drawn carriage down the street (read the “Public Enemy” feature in Spacing’s fall 2006 issue for our take on the fire department’s role in creating horrible streetscapes).

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14 comments

  1. In 1904, the telephone, telegraph, and electricity poles would have been filled with a jumble of wires going in all sorts of directions. Those wires also would have been in the way of the ladders and water.

  2. Was there a “fire department” by 1904?

    I say that not to be flippant, but the origins of a fire fighting service come not from the public sector in what we now know as a fire department (plus, I’m not familiar with the history of the TFD). Rather, “fire companies” (a term often used to this day to refer to a particular detachment) were set up by insurance companies who had obvious financial motivations to do so.

    One might suspect that such profit-driven motivation would either have these fire companies pressuring the city to not build streets too small, or perhaps make sure they purchase suitable equipment to perform their duties.

  3. Calvin:

    according to Wikipedia:

    Fire services in Toronto began in 1874 in the former City of Toronto, and consisted of volunteer fire companies. Prior to 1874, fire services were volunteer companies in the city. After the Great Toronto Fire in 1904, which destroyed much of Bay Street from Esplande West to Melinda Street, the Fire Department in Toronto became a critical city service and has evolved into the professional service that exists today.

  4. Thanks Matt for sharing this video! I guess sometimes those comments over at the Star are useful after all

  5. i wish i could find the link, but i swear i read somewhere only days ago that toronto is finally planning to buy a few (4-6?) smaller fire trucks to deal with private roads that don’t measure up to public width standards (potentially opening the door to more laneway housing?!?!).

  6. No need for quotes around “engine.” The word engine in fire engine refers to the pump. They were called fire engines long before motorized vehicles were used.

  9. I wonder why the city didn’t bother to upload the restored film at a decent resolution? It’s kind of annoying when it’s such low resolution that the fire looks like nothing but flashing pixels… And they’re working from film, so it’s not like they were starting with a low-rez cell phone video or something…

    (if it’s not the video, and I’m doing something wrong on my end, please let me know!)

  10. @Melissa: No staff, no resources; archival workers are perpetually swamped.

    That video’s been up for a long time, pre-YouTube-explosion, and I bet they wanted to cut down on bandwidth costs. I doubt it’s a priority.

  11. I have enlarged it to fit our template. If you follow the link I provide you can see it in its smaller size.

  12. love that look of pixelated old film. It’s 21st century sumptuous.

  13. we always talk about mayor miller’s hurdles and hardships, imagine what Mayor Urqhart had to deal with the day after the fire! A little different from sars. I have always felt that a movie should be made about Urqhart’s on goings before. during and after the fire…

    Great Find!

  14. Sorry, but i just remembered. Didn’t the fire department, months before the fire ask the city for more funding to prevent a disaster like the “fire” from happening? Only to be turned down because a “fire” would be unlikely?