Great Fire of Saint John

The Great Fire of Saint John was an urban fire that devastated much of Saint John, New Brunswick in June 1877, destroying two-fifths of the city. At the time Saint John had a population in the mid-30,000s—up from just over 30,000 in the 1871 census—and was one of the largest cities in the Dominion of Canada.

The city’s dense Victorian era core, composed largely of dense, multi-unit wooden buildings packed closely together, reflected decades of rapid growth but also made it highly vulnerable to fire. When the blaze swept through on June 20, 1877, it destroyed more than 1,600 structures and left about 13,000 people homeless, a devastating impact that underscored both the city’s size and the tightly built character of its urban landscape.