Today is the 100th anniversary of the San Francisco earthquakes and fire that destroyed much of the city.

Here is a picture taken five weeks after the earthquake from a tethered balloon.

For some fascinating personal accounts, and some audacious ones (the first man went from his home to his office, secured all the company’s goods, took them out of town, and then went back to his home to see if his wife lived), go to the Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco. Included in the lists is Enrico Caruso’s (world-renowned operatic tenor) description of his experience.

In honor of the date, or perhaps by felicitious coincidence, I read The Fire Rose by Mercedes Lackey, a fantasy novel set in 1905 and 1906 in San Francisco. It is inaccurate in places, not even in places where it needs to be for the fiction, but it was a timely reading.