The Forgotten Fire

I have often wondered why there seem to be so few people who remember the historic Berkeley fire of fifty-one years ago, in which, in two hours' time, sixty entire city blocks rose to the sky in smoke. The explanation is simple. People have not forgotten; they have grown old and died.

So begins a piece entitled simply "Wildfire: Berkeley, 1923" which appeared in the September 23, 1974 edition of The New Yorker. (Subscribers to the magazine can read the archived issue online here.) Alas, the writer, whose full married name was June Hildegarde Flanner Monhoff, grew old and died herself, in 1987. A Cal alum, she was the sister of Janet Flanner, the famous writer and war correspondent. 

Below is rare archival footage from the aftermath of the fire.