Cromwell went back inside and left the vault door open so the contents would be destroyed. Then he walked out and climbed in the open driver’s section of the Rolls and sat beside Abner. “Drive to our warehouse at the railyard,” he instructed.

“We’ll have to detour to the north docks and come around behind the fires if we want to reach the railyard,” said Abner, shifting the car into first gear. As he skirted the huge fire consuming Chinatown, he headed toward Black Point, to the north. Already, wooden buildings were disintegrating into beds of smoldering ashes as broken chimneys stood like blackened tombstones.

Some streets were clear enough to drive through, Abner avoiding those that were impassable because they were buried under collapsed walls. The Rolls was stopped twice by police, demanding the car be used as an ambulance, but Cromwell merely pointed to the makeshift bodies under the blankets and said they were on their way to the morgue. The police duly stepped back and waved them on.

Abner had to weave his way around crowds of refugees from the burned-out areas, carrying their meager belongings. There was no panic; people moved slowly, as if they were out for a Sunday stroll. There was little conversation, and few looked back at what had been their homes before the calamity.

Cromwell was stunned at the intensity and swiftness of the fire as it consumed a nearby building. The towering blaze sent a shower of flaming sparks and debris onto the roof, which became a flaming torch within two or three minutes. Then a firestorm enveloped the entire building and consumed it in less time than it takes to boil water.

Regular army troops from the surrounding military installations began arriving to maintain order and help the city firemen fight the flames. Ten companies of artillery, infantry, cavalry, and the Hospital Corps—seventeen hundred men in all—marched into the city with guns and cartridge belts, prepared to guard the ruins, the bank and store vaults and safes, the post office, and the Mint from looters. Their orders were to shoot any man caught stealing.

They passed a caravan of soldiers in four automobiles whose backseats were stacked with boxes of dynamite from the California Powder Works. Within minutes, explosions rocked the already-devastated city, as homes and stores were detonated and leveled to slow the rage of the fire. Losing the battle, the army quickly began to dynamite entire blocks in a last-ditch attempt to stop the onslaught of the conflagration.

A sickly pale yellow light crept through the growing pall of smoke. There was no sun falling on the ruins except around the outskirts of the city. The dull ball of the sun appeared red and seemed smaller than its usual size. The army troops, firemen, and police retreated from the flames, herding the homeless to the west away from the approaching holocaust.