The Great Fire of 1916 on Parliament Hill.

PositionBrief article

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On a bitterly cold evening on February 3, 1916, Members of Parliament were in the House of Commons to participate in an evening session when a fire started on one of the lower shelves in a Reading Room at 8:55 p.m. Four minutes later the first fire engine arrived on the Hill as flames engulfed the roof of Centre Block. At 9 p.m., the Chief Doorkeeper of the House of Commons alerted MPs by yelling, "There is a big fire in the Reading Room; everybody get out quickly!" Quick thinking by Librarian Michael Connolly MacCormac saved the structure from complete destruction when he dispatched a messenger to close its iron doors. At the stroke of midnight the bell in the Victoria Tower came crashing down. The fire raged towards the Senate by 12:45 a.m., but firefighters' efforts to...

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