Lyttelton's Great Fire of 1870

See that corner over there, where London and Oxford Streets meet? That's where the Great Fire of Lyttelton started on October 24, 1870. It was around 9 pm, and they think it began in some packing cases filled with straw, right behind the Queen's Hotel.

The fire spread really fast because most of the buildings back then were made of timber. People tried to fight it — the local 'hook and ladder' brigade, prisoners from the Gaol, even seamen organized by the publican of the Mitre Hotel, who were bucketing beer from barrels onto the shingled roof to try and protect it.

Eventually, after frantic messages were sent from the telegraph office, a Fire Brigade and a steam fire engine arrived by train from Christchurch. The Mayor of Christchurch and some City Councillors came too.

A reporter from the Christchurch Press was on that train, and what he saw was terrible. He wrote that the whole block, about three acres, was "one solid mass of fire, lighting up the harbor and surrounding hills." He also described women and children huddled together on piles of furniture on the reclaimed land, "utterly homeless, and only partially clothed."

The fire was finally under control in the early hours of the next morning. When daylight came, the damage was clear: about two-thirds of the township, around five acres, had been burned down. Thirty local businesses and many homes were left with just their chimneys standing. It’s remarkable that even with all that destruction, no one was seriously injured or died.

At the time, this was New Zealand's worst urban fire. It led to the establishment of the Lyttelton Volunteer Fire Brigade in 1873. That brigade has served the town through many disasters since then.