User:PlayswithfireNJ/The Great Confligration of 1902

The Great Confligration of 1902

WigWam which was part of the trolley barn complex where the fire originated in 1902.

The Great Confligration of 1902 is believed to have been the largest fire in the state of NJ. It was reported that the fire started just before midnight in the trolley car sheds of the Jersey City, Hoboken, Paterson Railway Company, located on Broadway at the head of Mulberry Street. The fire was reported on February 9, 1902 at 12:10 AM by an employee of the Jersey City, Hoboken, Paterson Railway Company, who ran to the fire box at Main Street and Broadway.

Map of the Burned District after The Great Fire of 1902

A high wind (gusts of 50 miles per hour) was blowing on one of the coldest nights of the winter, and the tinder-like building was swept by the flames. Responding with the first alarm assignment from his location at Engine Company 5 on Water Street was Assistant Chief James Mills. The immensity of the fire was so obvious that the chief stopped at Main and Broadway and transmitted a third alarm (bypassing the second) from the Gamewell box. In 1902 a third alarm was in essence a general alarm and all PFD apparatus were thus summoned.​

By the time the blaze was extinguished it had claimed 459 buildings, five churches, and the free public library with its 37,000 volumes.

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