The Day of the Wildfire Trivia Quiz

Answer:

The earliest disaster in the quiz is the Great Fire of Rome in 64CE, famed for the apocryphal story of Nero playing the violin while the conflagration raged. It started near the Circus Maximus, and burned for nine days in total, destroying over 70% of the city. Shakespeare's famous Globe Theatre was completely destroyed by fire in 1613, although it seems nobody died. The fire began during a performance of the play now called 'Henry VIII', when cannons were fired to announce the monarch's entrance. A spark set fire to the thatched roof, soon spreading and causing a complete loss of the building. Maybe bugles would have been a safer bet.

Still in London, and even more destructive, was the fire which destroyed much of the city over five days in 1666. With tightly packed buildings and wooden construction, coupled with indecision from those in charge, the fire spread rapidly. Few deaths were reported, but it may be that the poor weren't counted. The positives were the end of the plague and better buildings to replace the ones destroyed, such as St Paul's Cathedral. If you're starting to think only Europe has suffered, we can now look at the Great Fire of Boston, which took place in 1760. Although Boston had suffered previous fires, this one was notable for the destruction caused. The cause is unknown, but the fire spread rapidly, even destroying ships in the harbour. This was pre-independence, and Britain's refusal to help with rebuilding costs may well have been an early cause of the revolution.

We stay in the USA for the next two fires too. The first of these is one of the best known - Chicago in 1871. Raging over three days, the fire destroyed about three square miles (nine square kilometres) of the city, killing around three hundred people and leaving 100,00 or more without their homes. The story of Mrs. O'Leary's cow is likely to be a myth, though. The 1811 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in 1911 was definitely a man-made disaster. A fire broke out on the eighth floor of a garment making company in Manhattan, New York City. The exit doors to the floor were locked, to stop employees stealing, discarded material was left to accumulate, giving the fire an easy way to spread and the fire is believed to have begun when a discarded match or cigarette was thrown into a bin. The results were tragic, with nearly one hundred and fifty trapped people losing their lives, many of them dying after jumping from windows rather than burning to death.

In a completely different area of the world, the Happy Valley Racecourse fire of 1918 took place in Hong Kong. On one of the biggest days of the venue's racing calendar, a temporary stand collapsed with fire spreading from the food stalls beneath. The official death toll is 614 with most of the bodies being unidentifiable. Back in England, 1936 saw the destruction of the Crystal Palace, the magnificent building which Joseph Paxton had designed for the Great Exhibition in 1851. Originally located in Hyde Park, it had been rebuilt in Sydenham once the exhibition was over, with many changes. By 1936, it had become rather dilapidated and the fire which broke out rapidly spread, destroying the historic building, but with no loss of life.

In 1981, a fire broke out on Valentine's Day in a nightclub called the Stardust in Dublin. The cause was probably an electrical fault, but the fire spread rapidly above the ceiling before carpets and furniture caught alight. Again, there were issues with locked fire doors, and obstructions meant to prevent people getting in without paying then brought death to those trapped inside. The death toll was forty-eight with over two hundred more injured. Some of the survivors later committed suicide to add to the cost of the disaster. Another preventable fire took place in 1987 at King's Cross tube station in London, part of St Pancras station. Caused by a careless discarded match, which set light to a wooden escalator, the fire spread via a flashover to the ticket office above where most of the casualties died or were injured. Smoking had been banned three years prior to the incident but the ban was regularly ignored by those leaving the station. In total, thirty-one people died with many more injured.

The 1988 Piper Alpha fire took place on a rig in the North Sea, located over one hundred miles (nearly two hundred km) from Aberdeen. In July, gas pipes ruptured leading to a catastrophic fire and 167 deaths. The rig itself was destroyed, and the exact sequence of events was hard to ascertain - only 61 men survived. Australia's Black Saturday took place in 2009 when bushfires in the state of Victoria cost one hundred and seventy-three human lives and those of an estimated one million or more animals, both wild and domesticated. Powerlines were brought down by strong winds, igniting fires which spread rapidly in the conditions. As well as the loss of life, huge areas of forest and land were reduced to ashes along with the homes of numerous Australians.

The final two fires covered in the quiz took place in Paris in 2019 and Canada in 2024. The fire at the Notre-Dame cathedral broke out in the evening of 15th April in the roof area, spreading to destroy much of the roof and the spire of the building, a replacement for the original one from the thirteenth century. Although no lives were lost, Notre-Dame is a famous Parisian landmark and the damage was extensive. Rebuilding work is still ongoing at the time of writing, and the cathedral is expected to re-open by December 2024. Jasper is located in Alberta, Canada, and suffered a long-lasting and destructive wildfire from July to September 2024. Many residents had to be evacuated and found their homes destroyed when they returned, and much damage was caused to Jasper National Park. One firefighter lost his life while tackling the blazes.

Although Lisbon has suffered fires, the disaster which befell it in 1755 was an earthquake. The Indonesian disaster of 1815 was the eruption of the volcano, Mount Tambora, an event which caused widespread disruption throughout the world. The eruption caused temperatures to drop for several years, leading to food shortages. Galveston suffered catastrophic damage in 1900 due to a hurricane. Estimates of the fatalities range from six thousand to twelve thousand.

The 1943 bombing of the dams in the Ruhr Valley took place during wartime so was definitely man-made. The flooding caused by their destruction led to the loss of around 1,600 civilian lives. Also a deliberate act, the 1974 damage to the Mulberry Bush public house in central Birmingham was caused by a bomb. A second bomb was placed at another nearby pub, called the Tavern in the Town Over the two public houses, twenty-one people died with many others being severely injured. The Provisional IRA is generally accepted to have been behind the event.

The final non-fire related event is the 2004 undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, in the Indian Ocean which set off one of the deadliest tsunamis in history. The deadly waves hit numerous countries around the region with the death toll reaching close to 230,000.