[Title Page of Photo Album Prepared by the Redwood Car Shippers Bureau, 1906]

[Transcription of Photo Album Title Page]

      REDWOOD IN THE SAN FRANCISCO FIRE.

      In ancient or modern history, the only calamity, similar to the recent San Francisco disaster that, in its approximate magnitude, affords any just basis of comparison, is the Chicago fire of October, 1871, and a brief review of some of the salient points of difference between these collosial [sic] conflagrations will most forcibly illustrate and accentuate the great superiority of redwood over pine in the former's distinctive qualities of fire resistance and slow combustion.

      The Chicago fire started at a single point in a pine barn in the West Division, in the midst of pine buildings. The flames raged with great fury; jumped every street in their pathway, narrow and wide; crossed two intervening branches of the Chicago River, sweeping everything before them except a single building in the North Division and finally ended at the cemetery, where there was nothing else to burn.

      The total area of the burned district was 2124 acres and the value of property destroyed was $196,000,000 and all the frame buildings were pine.

      The San Francisco fire began with the flames simultaneously breaking out in many different places, widely separated; with the wind at different times blowing from almost every point of the compass, it made rapid headway in all directions, and, though for three days it raged with untold violence, it was finally stopped at points in every principal direction, in the very midst of frame constructions whose exterior finish was redwood lumber, and at one place where the street was only sixty-four feet wide. The total burned area was about 2500 acres and the value of the property destroyed was about $400,000,000.

      With the aid of the fire, resistant [sic] quality of redwood lumber, two-thirds of the private residences in the fire's pathway were saved and the extent of the burned district was restricted to one-fourth of the city's improved area.

      The photos in this album show some of the many different points where, in all principal directions, the fire was finally stopped in the very midst of frame, redwood buildings.

      Pictures Nos. 1 and 7 show where at East and Mission streets the fire was prevented from extending west.

      Nos. 2 and 6 show where at Van Ness Ave. and Dolores Street, the fire was stopped from going west].

      No. 3 shows where at Golden Gate Ave. the fire was prevented from going north.

      Nos. 4, 5, 7 and 8 shows [sic] where at Townsend, Mission and 20 th Streets, the fire was prevented from going south.

      It is the concensus [sic] of intelligent local opinion, that if the unburned buildings at all the different points where the fire's progress was permanently stayed, had been of pine or other resinous wood, the area of the burned district would have been greatly enlarged, with more than the possibility that it would have extended clear through to the ocean beach.

      In conclusion, we quote the following letter, written since the fire by P.H. Shaughnessy, Chief of the San Francisco Fire Department, to-wit:

      Mr. A. B. Wilcox,

      San Francisco, Cal.

      DEAR SIR:--In reply to your request for my opinion as to the correctness of the belief that in its qualities of fire resistance and slow combustion, redwood is much superior to pine and other soft woods, I would state that after an extended experience of more than twenty-two years in active connection with the San Francisco Fire Department, the results of my observation convince me that under similar conditions of heat exposure, redwood lumber ignites much less quickly and burns much more slowly than pine or other kinds of resinous, soft building woods with which I am familiar, and I am also convinced that, when redwood lumber becomes ignited, the fire is much more easily extinguished than is the combustion of pine or other soft building woods.

      The reason for these differences, I think, is largely owing to the fact that redwood is well known as a non-resinous wood.

      In the recent great fire of San Francisco, that began April 18th, 1906, we succeeded in finally stopping it in nearly all directions where the unburned buildings were almost entirely of frame construction, and if the exterior finish of those buildings had not been of redwood lumber I am satisfied that the area of the burned district would have been very greatly extended.

      Very truly,

      P. H. SHAUGHNESSY, Chief Engineer, San Francisco Fire Department.

      Of all the new, temporary structures that have been erected in the burned district of San Francisco since the fire, probably ninety per cent have their exterior finish of redwood lumber.

REDWOOD CAR SHIPPERS BUREAU, A. B. WILCOX, Sec'y