San Francisco Is Burning by Dennis Smith

“Jack London, who also wrote an account of the fire, made similar observations about the demeanor of San Francisco’s citizens. ‘As remarkable as it may seem,’ he wrote, ‘Wednesday night, while the whole city crashed and roared into ruin, was a quiet night. There were no crowds. There was no shouting and yelling. There was no hysteria, no disorder. I passed Wednesday night in the path of the advancing flames, and in all those terrible hours, I saw not one woman who wept, not one man who was excited, not one person who was in the slightest degree panic-stricken…Never in San Francisco’s history, were her people so kind and courteous as on this night of terror.’”

-Jack London