Employing the same vivid prose and storytelling skill that made his Report from Ground Zero a national bestseller, Dennis Smith reconstructs those harrowing days from the perspective of the people who lived through them. Smith draws on hundreds of individual accounts and official documents to unearth the true story of the fires--from the corrupt officials who left the city woefully unprepared for disaster, to the militia officers who enforced martial law with deadly force, to the individual heroes who battled the blaze and saved untold lives. San Francisco Is Burning is a thrilling disaster tale that brings a lost chapter of history back to riveting life.
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Background Information
Although devastated by the earthquake and fire of 1907, San Francisco kept its position as the West's leading city until overtaken by Los Angeles. The San Francisco earthquake inflicted heavy damage in 1906 and was followed by widespread fires that could not be controlled, which devastated much of what had survived the quake.