We remember the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906 120 years ago today

Written by Harold Chappelhouman on April 18, 2026

April 18, 2026 marks the 120th anniversary of the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906, which is commemorated and commemorated at 5:14 a.m., the exact time the earthquake struck.

The magnitude of the event, which occurred before monitoring and measurement became standardized, after a foreshock, is often discussed as a magnitude 7.7 to 8.3 event lasting 42 seconds. Perhaps most strikingly, the quake was felt from Los Angeles to Oregon to central Nevada. The earthquake occurred on the San Andreas Fault, affecting approximately 280 miles of the fault line and impacting multiple communities.

Over the years, mortality estimates for the entire region have been revised. About 3,000 people are now believed to have been killed, placing this earthquake among the country’s top 10 deadliest and most destructive catastrophic events, slightly higher than the 2,974 September 11 casualties who died in the terrorist attacks on New York City in 2001.

While San Mateo County miraculously reported no deaths, it did suffer significant damage to several buildings. Locally, in Menlo Park and Atherton, major structural damage, major collapses and collapse were seen at St Patrick’s School, Sacred Heart School and the Duff and Doyle Mall, but fortunately they were all saved from the fire, although sustaining extensive damage.

In 1906, the population of Menlo Park was measured in the hundreds while that of San Mateo County was reported to be in the thousands. The population in both jurisdictions has doubled in the years following the earthquake. It is important to remember that at the time, San Francisco was the ninth largest city in the country with a population of 410,000, with at least 250,000 people displaced after the earthquake and fires. Many of them resided in 26 refugee camps in San Francisco or across the bay in Oakland and Berkeley.

Santa Clara and Sonoma counties weren’t so lucky. Stanford University’s Palo Alto campus reported two deaths and sustained significant damage, especially to several arches, the Memorial Chapel, the gymnasium, the library, and several other damaged buildings.

Downtown San Jose suffered several collapsed structures followed by several large fires that firefighters were miraculously contained by nightfall due to an adequate water supply. The total number of deaths in Santa Clara County was reported to be 102, most of them in the San Jose area.

To the north, Santa Rosa in Sonoma County reported up to 85 deaths and severe damage to almost the entire city. Outside of San Francisco, it was considered the hardest-hit area. Similar to San Francisco, the earthquake destroyed and damaged many buildings and the situation was complicated by multiple fires as firefighters struggled to control them all in the days after the earthquake because the water supply was a factor.

The fire chief’s story

In San Francisco, Chief Engineer Dennis T. Sullivan returned to his family’s residence at 2:0 a.m., after responding to a second fire alarm in North Beach. The fire chief and his wife, Margaret, lived on the third floor of the Chemical Fire Company’s Building No. 3 at 410 Bush Street.

In order not to disturb his wife’s sleep, he would often sleep in another bedroom after being called to the fire. When the earthquake struck, the ornate dome of the Hotel California located next to Fire Station 3 toppled over, penetrated the roof and continued up the third and second floors, ending up on the first floor and/or in the basement below.

In the darkness, President Sullivan searched blindly for his wife but instead fell from the third floor into the basement due to the collapse. Despite a fractured skull, four broken ribs, a punctured lung, deep lacerations on his hip, and burns from hot steam and water, he managed to crawl out of the rubble with serious injuries, even as the Station 3 crew searched for him and his wife. Ms Sullivan was also located and was also seriously injured in the collapse.

Dennis Sullivan was hired as a hoseman in the San Francisco Fire Department in 1877, rose through the ranks and became chief engineer in 1893. Under his leadership, he organized the fire department to a very high level of efficiency.

In 1900 he converted the fire department into a full-time paid professional organization. In 1903 he implemented important standards and physical abilities testing. At the time of the earthquake and fire, SFD had 584 firefighters, 45 fire stations, 36 engine companies, 8 truck companies, 7 chemical companies, 1 water tower, and 2 monitoring batteries.

The earthquake and subsequent fires damaged or destroyed 25 stations and 14 pieces of emergency equipment. Initially, 100 firefighters were reported missing and feared dead. Fortunately, this was not the case, but truck driver James O’Neill was killed at Truck Company 1 on O’Farrell Street in another fire station collapse.

While the earthquake caused significant structural damage to the city, the numerous fires, usually started by gas leaks, or intentionally, became a bigger problem, especially with little or no supply of potable water, despite the availability of 4,000 fire hydrants.

Firefighting began on the 18th of this month and continued for four days until dawn on the 21st, when the fire was finally brought under control. Exhausted firefighters could often be found sleeping on the ground next to their equipment, yet they continued to fight, building by building, piece by piece, often against impossible and frustrating conditions.

At some point, the larger fires in the downtown area came together to form a three-mile-wide firewall. Two special fire boats were brought in to help save the ferry building and some warehouses along the seaport. Dynamite was used to blow up structures to create fire breaks, but it consequently created its own set of problems.

In all, the fire destroyed 85% of the city, or 4.7 square miles, and 490 residential buildings consisting of 28,000 wood and masonry buildings. The estimated loss was $524 million.

President Sullivan died at the age of 53 from his injuries at Letterman Hospital five days later on April 22. His wife survived and eventually recovered, but was unable to attend his funeral and memorial service held a year later (pictured above).

For many years, President Sullivan has called for an additional water supply system based not only on gravity-fed elevated tanks but also the addition of two fire boats that could pump seawater into a multiple-pressure-volume system. Each boat is capable of pumping 10,000 gallons per minute.

In 1909, three years after his death and the fire, $279,618 was spent to create an additional water supply system. Two fireboats were purchased, but it may have been appropriate for one to be named Dennis T. Sullivan.

Harold Chappelhoma is the retired chief of the Menlo Park Fire Protection District and serves as the organization’s historian

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