Video: 'Great Fire of 1901'

(Friday, May 3, 1901, 12:30-8:30 p.m. local time; during the Great Fire of 1901) — The “Great Fire of 1901,” the third largest urban fire in U.S. history, next to the Great Chicago Fire, and the 1906 San Francisco fire, destroyed 146 city blocks today in Jacksonville, Florida, over an area of 455 acres in eight hours.

The fire broke out at around noon local time when sparks from the chimney of a building near the Cleaveland Fibre Factory, located on the corner of Beaver and Davis Streets, started a fire in a pile of Spanish moss that had been laid out to dry.

Factory workers tried to put it out with a few buckets of water, as they had frequently done on similar occasions, but the blaze was soon out of control due to the wind picking up out of the east.

In eight hours, the fire destroyed more than 2,368 buildings, and left almost 10,000 residents homeless.

It is said the glow from the flames could be seen in Savannah, Georgia, and the smoke plumes in Raleigh, North Carolina.