Remembering the ‘Great Fire’ of Calgary
Posted Nov 6, 2016 9:22 am.
Last Updated Nov 6, 2016 11:41 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Monday is a significant date in Calgary history.
130 years ago on November 7 the ‘Great fire of 1886’ burned a large portion of downtown to the ground.
It could have been worse if not for the heroic efforts by the then one-year-old fire department.
Rebecca Melenka with the Firefighters Museum Society tells 660 NEWS it happened near 9 Avenue and Centre Street.
“The damage was over $103,000 back then, which is over $2 Million in today’s dollars, so it was pretty big,” she said.
“Back then the buildings were made of wood, there was hay and straw everywhere, it was just a different time. Everything would have been much more centralized.”
That included the fire brigade, which had only been formed a year before. Fire headquarters was near where The Bay store is located now.
