Visualizing the Great Fire of Toronto of 1904

In April 1904, the largest fire in Toronto history ripped through a huge swath of the downtown core.

Ruins of the Great Fire of Toronto of 1904 — Devastation from the Great Fire of Toronto of 1904, looking north from the foot of Bay St. (City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1244, Item 2)

The numbers alone tell a staggering story about the blaze that ripped through Toronto on the evening of April 19, 1904 — now known as the Great Fire of Toronto of 1904.

But seeing it represented on a modern map adds a distinctly surrealist layer, displaying just how large a swath of today’s downtown core was affected.

The fire began in a building near Wellington and Bay around 8:00 p.m., and spread from there. It burned until roughly 5:00 a.m. the following morning, reaching as far south as the Esplanade and nearly getting to Yonge St. on the eastern edge. As it burned, it consumed about 100 buildings and did $10 million (in 1904 currency) in damage.

A few other harrowing figures:

20 acres levelled
250 firefighters, many of whom came from nearby cities with their own equipment
5,000 people out of work, at least temporarily

It remains the largest fire in Toronto history — so big that at the time it could be seen from across the border in Buffalo, N.Y. A large contingent of firefighters from the city even made their way to Toronto, helping to save the Bank of Montreal building at Yonge and Front that is now the Hockey Hall of Fame.

The aftermath

To this day there is no definitive answer about how the fire started, though many have suggested faulty wiring or a stove left on at the end of a work day. Still, it spurred the city to adopt new fire-proofing standards for buildings, and rebuilding of the affected area began almost immediately.

One note from an insurance plan created at the time says an establishment called the Queen’s Hotel — located just outside the fire’s western edge — was “slightly damaged.” That hotel stood until 1927, when new owners the Canadian Pacific Railway knocked it down to build the Royal York.

Among the places that sprouted up in the area destroyed by the fire are Union Station, which began construction in 1914, and the Design Exchange. The area is also home to some of the city’s tallest buildings, including the Royal Bank Plaza towers and the TD Canada Trust Tower.

Incredibly, no lives were lost on the night of the fire. That said, a man named John Croft died following an explosives accident while clearing what remained of a building on Front St.

Croft is buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

This is an updated version of an article originally published in 2022. Fire icon by Icons8.

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