Chinatown Fires First Chinatown Fire, 1886 Almost all the businesses were in wooden structures, and in 1886 a fire blazed out of control and destroyed the homes of 7,000 Chinese and 350 Hawaiians. The three day fire razed more than eight blocks of Chinatown. This is the exact spot where it started. Laws were enacted to regulate rebuilding with fire precautions, but most of the new buildings were put up in violation of the rules. 13 years later the consequences were devastating.
The Great Chinatown Fire, 1899 On New Year's Eve, the first of a number of controlled fires were set in Chinatown as a way of defending Honolulu from the bubonic plague, known in history as Black Death. Next to the Pearl Harbor attack, the outbreak of plague was the greatest public safety disaster in Hawaiian history. The government was determined to do anything to save the city, even burn it to the ground. In a Saturday-night meeting of the board, Board of Health president Henry Cooper targeted the epicenter of the outbreak as Block 10, bounded by Nu'uanu, Pauahi, Smith and Beretania, and urged the complete destruction of the site. It was decided to begin burning down homes and businesses where plague was suspected. On New Years' Eve, as the world celebrated the new century, 85 Chinese inhabitants of a building on Nu'uanu street were ordered out by militia. By mid afternoon, with guard ropes up, Honolulu Fire Department wagons were in place and started hosing down adjacent buildings while the Nu'uanu structure was set ablaze. Despite precautions, a nearby building caught fire from flying sparks and started burning. It was an omen. There were no celebrations recorded in Honolulu that New Year's Eve. The newspapers kept track with maps and marveled at the "military" precision the assault on Black Death. Five plague deaths within a couple of days occurred near the corner of Nu'uanu and Beretania. The government decided to burn it out in the morning of Jan. 20. Four fire engines and every fireman in Honolulu were on the scene. About an hour into the controlled burning, the wind scattered embers across neighboring rooftops. The wooden roof of Kaumakapili Church with its twin spires, the tallest building in the area, erupted into flames beyond the hoses of firemen.
Helpless, they watched flaming embers, carried on a sudden wind, fly unchecked onto the wooden buildings of Chinatown.
Like blazing dominos, one after another, buildings began to ignite. Witnesses saw flaming shingles torn from rooftops and carried aloft by smoking tornadoes, then flutter out of the sky onto new rooftops to ignite new fires.
The flames reached for electrical lines. Unwilling to risk live high power lines writhing in the streets and electrocuting citizens, Hawaiian Electric shut off all power to downtown Honolulu. Without power, however, the telephone system went down and pumps ceased operating. Newspapers were unable to publish. At night there would be no lights. With only two water engines and one chemical engine, the Fire Department could not hope to contain the conflagration. By noon, officials decided to begin blowing up structures in the path of the fire. Guardsmen lit dynamite and tossed it into storefronts, kegs of gunpowder were rolled into apartments and set off, hidden supplies of fireworks and jugs of kerosene began erupting in the onrushing flames. The fire turned toward the sea and ships fled the wharves as sizzling embers rained down on their decks. Chinatown was convulsing in a fiery agony, and yet it was still a quarantine zone. The inhabitants were trapped. As buildings exploded around them, citizens were prevented from fleeing by lines of troops and police. Screaming mobs of residents charged the quarantine lines and were beaten back by hastily formed ranks of police, military and vigilantes armed with axe handles seized from hardware stores. A cordon of guards was formed along both sides of King Street and refugees were herded toward the grounds of Kawaiahao Church, where they could be isolated within the stone walls. Witnesses were struck by the helpless fear and anger on the refugees' faces as they rescued only what they could carry. Many of the fleeing men were in an ugly, vicious mood, armed with knives and clubs. By mid afternoon, more than 4,000 citizens were locked up on the church grounds. By mid afternoon, the holocaust began to gutter. The smoldering neighborhood had been leveled nearly from Punchbowl to the sea, the streets filled with muddy pools, and property and furnishings in sooty, soggy, stinking heaps. Acrid smoke rose in dank mists. As the city struggled to cope with the huge numbers of homeless refugees on the evening of Jan. 20, 1900, there was a largely overlooked footnote, ONLY ONE CASE OF PLAGUE HAD BEEN REPORTED, THAT DAY. THE PLAGUE WAS OVER!
