N.B.-born author wants to ignite interest in the Great Saint John Fire of 1877 | CBC News

It’s been 145 years since raging fire, blinding smoke and thick layers of ash smothered the city of Saint John, leaving 200 acres of the city destroyed. 

The Great Fire of Saint John changed the city forever, according to author Mark Allan Greene. Despite that, he said few people actually know much about it. 

“It ended up being one of the worst urban fires in 19th century North America. It was bigger than the Boston fire and everyone’s heard about the Boston fire, and proportionally bigger than the Chicago fire,” said Greene, who grew up in Saint John but now lives in Edmonton. “It’s becoming a lost story.”

In 2016, Greene took a trip to Saint John where he asked some tour guides where the fire started, but they all had different answers. Greene said this isn’t due to the fire not being well-documented. In fact, two books were written right after the fire in 1877. He said the authors were given two weeks to write them because of the demand. 

“I wanted to bring the story back alive,” said Greene. 

So that’s what he did. Greene’s book, The Great Saint John Fire of 1877: The rise, destruction and recovery of Canada’s leading port city, was published on Oct. 18.

The book features archival images and captions that lead the readers through the events that took place in 1877. 

“To me, a picture says a thousand words, but a picture and about 150 and 200 words with it, it tells a story.”

Greene said Saint John started as a barren rock, but some exiled loyalists worked to turn nothing into the third-largest city in Canada.

Wooden houses and wooden warehouses packed the city after its 70-year rise, said Greene.

He said there was some criticism after the Great Fire because there was no thought about fire prevention — an important consideration in a city made of wood. He said there were even warning signs, 13 major fires leading up to the big one in 1877. 

“What would have happened if a spark didn’t land on that hay bale that day? Probably a couple years later, same thing, because it was set up for disaster just the way the city was constructed.”

Rebuild, reinvent

Greene said there was a lot of loss from the fire and people suffered because of it. He said often when people look back at historical events, they see the people as being tough and hardy enough to handle the loss. But he said the people who went through the fire endured the same psychological trauma that people now would experience — trauma that would stick with them for life.

Greene said Saint John has gone through many stages of rebuilding and reinventing itself, from the landing of the loyalists to the aftermath of the Great Fire along with other rebuilds and redirections since then.

He said the loyalists set out to build a city that would rival Boston and New York, but as a Saint John-native, Greene is happy he doesn’t see skyscrapers everywhere while walking around.

“What I’ve always liked about Saint John is it loves its history and it holds on to that charm,” he said. “It holds on to its heyday and it tries to preserve its history.”