Alesund Canal Bridge Red Hot Flames

The fire started when everyone was sleeping. And of course they would be at 2:15AM. It was a blustery cold winter's night on 23 January 1904, and what started as a small fire from an overturned kerosene lantern at a margarine factory west of town would become a life changing fire for the inhabitants of the western Norwegian town of Ålesund. The town had only minutes to escape with their lives.

The small town fire department was grossly unprepared for what was to come. The first alarm came from a manual fire pull station west of town and confirmed by the fire station's fire watch tower. Two horse drawn fire trucks were first dispatched but they were quickly overwhelmed. The glow from the fire was so bright and the smoke so thick, the horses had to be blind-folded in order to lead them toward the fire. The fire chief had to make split second decisions as to where to fight the blaze with his limited resources as the fire grew and the 50 mph winds fanned the flames and spread embers like a game of leap frog. In just 30 minutes the fire spread over 1 mile eastward skimming across the roofs of the wood framed structures in the town center, jumped over the town's Brosund or open water canal, about 1600 feet wide, and burned the town center to the ground. The town's only fire boat, a steam-driven vessel, tried desperately to suppress the flames that had engulfed the harbor structures. It was a losing battle. The town's water supply was unable to maintain the demand put on it by the multiple fire trucks. Before long, the water pressure was so low the stream from the fire nozzles could only reach to the bottom of the second floor of most houses. By the end of it all, 16 hours later, only 250 buildings of any type remained while 850 buildings were totally burned to the ground. Over 10,000 people were left homeless that night in the cold of winter. A 76 year-old woman died in the fire when she re-entered her house to retrieve her handbag.

Rebuilding began in earnest in the fall of 1904 and by autumn of 1907, the rebuilding was virtually complete. Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II was instrumental in this effort. The Kaiser had a very fond connection with western Norway and especially the town of Ålesund since he vacationed here often on his imperial yacht. It is recorded that before the last embers extinguished he had sent four warships loaded with materials, supplies, and personnel, enough to build temporary barracks housing for the homeless and providing food and medical help. His monetary assistance at the time helped rebuild this devastated township. The burned out wooden structures were replaced with stone ones. Along with this came architects, engineers, carpenters, stone masons and other craftsmen. Some 30 young Norwegian architects trained in Trondheim and some educated in Berlin, were eager to build structures in the Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) style architecture of the day. This style included gargoyle decorations, turrets, spirals, high pitched facades with arched windows and colonnades with metal and tiled roofs. Foreign aid came also from Sweden, Denmark, France and England. The Jugendstil style remains prevalent throughout the town center today, so much so that the town center appears like a classroom for the Art Nouveau style of architecture. In a national newspaper poll in 2012, Norwegians themselves voted Ålesund the most picturesque town in Norway.