JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jacksonville marks 125 years since the Great Fire of 1901, a blaze that leveled much of downtown and reshaped the city’s future — and historians say its conditions echo what crews are facing in wildfires burning today in Southeast Georgia.
“It was a day very much like our May 3rd that we’re living in, the contemporary moment here in 2026,” said Dr. Alan Bliss, CEO of the Jacksonville History Center.
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The fire erupted May 3, 1901, and became the most destructive event in Jacksonville’s history. Historians estimate about 90% of downtown was destroyed, including large homes and hotels.
Much of Jacksonville at the time was built with timber, Bliss said, a conveniently available supply found the pine flatwoods of Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia.
“If you know anything about burning pine, you know that it burns very cheerfully,” Bliss said.
Historians say the fire started when a spark landed on dry Spanish moss at the Cleveland Fibre Factory. The University of North Florida’s Thomas G. Carpenter Library has noted the fire burned for nearly eight hours, cutting a path through more than 150 city blocks and destroying about 2,400 structures.
“It caused a lot of people to lose everything, displaced from their homes for months and years afterwards,” Bliss said. “It destroyed businesses.”
A grim reality that is all too familiar in recent days in Brantley County, Georgia.
After digging through the numbers, Meteorologist Michelle McCormick says April 1901 and April 2026 both had hot and dry conditions, less than two inches of rainfall and winds that affected the fires.
“It took one spark from these winds to travel and make this great fire,” McCormick said.
Officials say the cause of the fire in Southeast Georgia was a balloon from a child’s party landing on a powerline.
Bliss said anniversaries like this are about more than remembering what burned. They are reminders that today’s choices will shape what Jacksonville – and other towns – become next.
“It will take people’s spiritual and emotional and psychic resilience. It will of course take money,” Bliss said. “The city that we occupy now in the 21st century was shaped by the choices and the decisions and the experiences of the people who lived in the city and the aftermath of the great fire.”