The Fire

The fire came from two directions surrounding the city. One arm came towards the annex from Mt. Fernie. The more destructive arm came down on the Fort Steele Brewery. Smoke and ash nearly blocked out the sun….

"I stepped into Wright’s jewelry store and then noticed for the first time that the atmosphere had a peculiar appearance, and a few moments later that it was filled with flying embers, and then it was that I became really scared."
- Anna Hubbard, Kalispell Bee, August 11, 1908

Map showing the path of the 1908 Great Fire

Fighting the Fire
Once news of the approaching fire reached town, groups of volunteer fire fighters raced out to the park where they made their first stand. The firefighters then went out to the Fernie Brewery where they tried to help its employees and other citizens to fight the fire. Scorched and tired they soon realized that it was hopeless to continue. The firefighters retreated back to the center of town where they made another stand.

The train from the mine was already on its way down with more hoses to fight the fire. By the time it made the seven minute trip down from Coal

The roof of the Fernie
Opera House, FDHS (P152)

Creek the fire had already reached the train tracks in the "Old Town" (The area of houses between the swimming pool and Coal Creek). People’s houses, cabins, and shacks were now on fire and hundreds of people from West Fernie began to cross the railroad bridge into Fernie. Others came running from the Old Town), as the fire moved closer screaming in terror.

"Showers of embers and cinders were hurled into the business and residential section, the Presbyterian Church being the first building to go on the town side of the tracks. Withering in its heat, the fire swept through the business center and down Victoria Avenue, sparing nothing. A sheet of flames covered the whole city."
- Sidney Hutcheson

By this time the entire south part of the city was a sheet of fire, people were trying to flee in all directions. The fire fighters tried to save some of the businesses downtown by keeping them wet and cool on the outside. They were defeated when the metal roof of the skating rink and the opera house were both ripped off by the violent winds of the fire. The roof of the opera house was blown right down Victoria Ave. (2nd Ave.) smashing into buildings and breaking their windows as it went. Hot embers and burning pieces of wood fell inside the buildings. The buildings began to burn.

Fernie citizens watched the flames coming closer and their panic grew. Whole blocks of the city were now burning. People began to run in every direction and the streets were in total disorder. Families were separated. Screaming women ran carrying their babies. Scared fathers tried to find their children in the middle of the chaos. Hot embers were coming down like rain, catching people’s clothes on fire and burning them.

Refugee camp on the Crow's Nest
Pass Coal Co. office grounds

Abandoning their final stand by the Bank of Commerce, the best the fire fighters could do was get the citizens to places of safety. Teamsters raced around Fernie gathering people in wagons and driving them as fast as they could to the railway stations. Residents from the Old Town headed to the Canadian Pacific Railway station where a train was waiting. Escape routes to the stations were quickly being cut off by the fire and people were forced to centres of refuge. People from the centre of town were fleeing to the Crow’s Nest Pass Coal Company’s office (now City Hall), a large building made of stone. Many people, mostly women and children took refuge there. Nurses, volunteers and patients from the hospital along with other residents from the northeast side of town headed to the concrete building of Western Canada Wholesale.


How It Started		The Great Escape

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© MM School District 5. Some photos © Fernie & District Historical Society.