List of fires

Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone.

Jack London after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire

This article is a list of notable fires.

Town and city fires

Painting of the Cathedral and the Academy building after the Great Fire of Turku, by Gustaf Wilhelm Finnberg, 1827

Building or structure fires

Transportation fires

Mining (including oil and natural gas drilling) fires

This is a partial list of fire due to mining: man-made structures to extract minerals, ores, rock, petroleum, natural gas, etc.

Date Location Dead/injured Details References
1884 to present New Straitsville, Ohio Coal mine fire ignited by striking miners World's Greatest Mine Fire
May 31, 1892 Příbram, now in the Czech Republic, 319/? Fire in Marine iron mine
September 7, 1895 Osceola Township, Houghton County, Michigan 30/? Osceola copper mine caught fire
April 7, 1911 Colliery, Throop, Pennsylvania, 72/? Fire at the Prince-Pancoast, leaving 72 dead by suffocation
1915 to present Luzerne County, Pennsylvania Laurel Run mine fire ignited when a carbide lamp set fire to a timber support
1956 Belgium 262/? Bois du Cazier fire [fr] killed 262 people from 12 nations
1962 Algeria Devil's Cigarette Lighter fire in a gas field, lasted almost 6 months before doused with explosives
1962 to present Pennsylvania Centralia Mine Fire, rendering the town uninhabitable
1967 to present Kukruse, Estonia A continuously burning gangue mound at the Kukruse mine
1971 to present Derweze, Ahal Province, Turkmenistan Darvaza gas crater fire in a natural gas field
morning of May 2, 1972 Kellogg, Idaho 91/? Fire broke out in the Sunshine Mine, on the morning of May 2; 91 workers died from smoke inhalation or carbon monoxide poisoning
September 16, 1986 Kinross, Transvaal, South Africa 177/235 Kinross mining disaster fire in a gold mine owned by the General Mining Union Corporation
July 6, 1988 North Sea 167/? Piper Alpha oil platform disaster
1991 State of Kuwait Kuwaiti oil fires following the Gulf War
2010 Gulf of Mexico Explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon mobile offshore drilling unit
New Zealand 29/? Pike River Mine disaster in New Zealand; a series of three explosions in the mine was followed by a fourth which set fire to the coal. 29 miners and contractors perished.
December 4, 2015 Caspian Sea 12+18 missing /? Gunashli Platform No.10 fire broke out on the offshore oil and gas platform in the Azerbaijani section of the Caspian Sea; 12 confirmed deaths, 18 missing.

Forest and countryside fires

Date Location Dead/injured Details References
October 8, 1871 Michigan >200/? A series of fires across the state, the most severe of which was the Port Huron fire. The combined Michigan fires killed over 200 people and burned about 1.2 million acres. Occurred on the same day as the Great Chicago Fire and the Peshtigo Fire. The Great Michigan Fire
October 8, 1871 Wisconsin 1,500-2,500/? Deadliest wildfire in world history. Death toll can only be estimated because entire towns with all town records were incinerated. Burned over 1.2 million acres. Occurred on the same day as the Great Chicago Fire and the Great Michigan Fires. Peshtigo Fire
1910 North Idaho and Western Montana 87/? The largest Fire in U.S. history burned an area the size of Connecticut (3,000,000 acres [12,000 km2]), killing 87 people, including 78 firefighters Great Fire of 1910
1911 Ontario 73-200/? Great Porcupine Fire
July 29, 1916 223/? Six towns destroyed, two more damaged Matheson Fire
October 12, 1918 Minnesota 453/? 1918 Cloquet Fire
1921 35/? 1921 Mari wildfires
1922 Northern Ontario Several towns destroyed including 90% of the city of Haileybury, Ontario Great Fire of 1922

See also


This page was last updated at 2023-11-20 14:03 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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