Great Fire

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Historic sites · Year: 1784

The great fire that occurred in the city at the end of the 18th century is not a very well-known event in the history of Santa Cruz. It was not the first, but it was the most destructive.

Fires were frequent in Santa Cruz, as is generally the case in ports where there are many wooden warehouses and flammable goods. The first recorded fire was the one that destroyed the parish church in 1652. At the beginning of the 18th century, fires multiplied in the city because many buildings were constructed with a mezzanine of timber and pinewood planks, as well as having premises that stored goods that caught fire very easily (wood, fabrics, brandy, oil, resin, etc.). There was a first attempt to organise a fire brigade by the Royal Audience in 1741, but it did not prosper.

On 30 December 1769, a Maltese merchant's house caught fire, causing great alarm in the city. But it was not comparable to the great fire that occurred on the night of 28 September 1784 in the very heart of Santa Cruz. It all started in a ground-floor room of the house of the owner Almeida, on Calle del Sol (now Doctor Allart), from where it quickly spread from one block to another until it reached the seafront, with nothing and no one able to control it. After the alarm was sounded, the then commander-in-chief, Marquis of Branciforte, who was celebrating a party at his house, immediately went to the scene. Hours later, the corregidor arrived from La Laguna accompanied by a large troop. Nothing could be done to stop the disaster.

Fifty-three houses burned in the disaster, "many of them magnificent". The house of the beneficiary burned and the current baptism and marriage registers were lost, which were later reconstructed with the help of witnesses. The house of the Royal Treasury administration also burned, but papers and funds were evacuated. The entire area was reduced to a heap of smouldering rubble and plots of demolished or apparently ruined houses. There were no personal tragedies to lament, but material losses were valued at half a million pesos.

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