The Fire of the New Century

July 5, 1900: In the midst of a record breaking heat wave, the Standard Oil Refinery at Constable Hook in Bayonne, the largest in the country, caught fire. The blaze started when a lightning bolt passed through a house and ricocheted into the oil tank yard, exploding three storage tanks. It spread rapidly in a volatile environment over three days, battled by Bayonne firemen and Standard Oil employees. The conflagration became a tourist attraction as New Yorkers lined the shore across the Hudson River to watch the action until it burned itself out. Damage was estimated at thirty-five million dollars in the currency of the day – a billion dollars in today’s money. For a link to actual film footage of the Bayonne fire, see: http://www.loc.gov/item/00694164/