MAC exhibit explores ‘rebirth, resilience’ after Great Spokane Fire of 1889

Several times throughout the state’s history, Washington has been witness to just how powerful fire can be.

The Great Spokane Fire in 1889 effectively destroyed the city’s downtown, and, more recently, wildfires destroyed the majority of Malden and Pine City. In 2023, more than 10,000 acres near Medical Lake burned during the Gray Fire.

Fire can enter our lives in small ways too. We use it to light birthday candles and roast marshmallows over fires while camping, and we use fireplaces to heat our homes.

There’s a duality to fire – it brings about destruction but also a chance to start fresh. The newest exhibit at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, “Fire: Rebirth and Resilience,” explores both sides of the element’s personality as well as how we’ve managed to coexist with fire throughout history.

The show opened April 5 and runs through September 28.

Anna Harbine, the lead curator of “Fire: Rebirth and Resilience,” became interested in the Great Spokane Fire while attending graduate school. She was especially drawn to the stories told in the fire’s aftermath and of people’s search for meaning in the trauma, which she sees echoed on social media during natural disasters today when people are looking for the cause of a fire, who to blame and the “why” of it all.

“History rhymes,” she said. “You can always find the same kinds of stories again and again and find new meaning in them looking in the past.”

Harbine and the rest of the museum’s team had discussions about the different ways one can think about fire, focusing on its destructive nature, like with wildfires and controlled burns, and its restorative quality, as with cultural practices that cleanse and renew.

Curator of History Ellen Postlewait also spoke with people affected by fire in a variety of ways, including victims of wildfires and first responders as well as artists inspired by climate change.

“Fire: Rebirth and Resilience” features a section on the Great Spokane Fire as well as a section on other ways in which we think about fire.

Harbine said the MAC has more than 200 photographs related to the Great Fire in its collection, as well as oral histories and letters from the people affected by the loss of Spokane’s downtown. There are also curios from the rubble of the destroyed buildings like fused nails, used poker chips and burned opera glasses.

There are Great Fire stories that many are familiar with, like that the Crescent department store opened the day after the fire and that rebuilding downtown boosted Kirkland Cutter’s career as an architect.

But Harbine is most excited to showcase stories that have been told to the museum since its last exhibit about the fire, which took place for the centennial anniversary in 1989, as well as stories from those affected by the fires which destroyed Malden and Pine City.

“We live in a landscape where fire still affects us, and yet we think about things like, ‘Oh, fires don’t burn down cities anymore. That’s in the past. Wildfires are what we have to worry about now.’ And that’s not true,” she said.

In the more modern part of the exhibition, a variety of firefighting uniforms and equipment from past and present will be on display. There is also a fork and spoon burned in a fire that happened as a result of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

The exhibit also touches on our ongoing relationship with wildfires that result from climate change and recognizes the sense of resiliency that can come when rebuilding in the aftermath of a fire.

There are also links throughout the gallery to digital resources and information about fire safety and preparedness.

“I like pulling collections on themes because it often pulls out things unexpectedly,” Harbine said.

One of those unexpected items is a children’s book about fire safety called “Sparks: Fire Prevention Rhymes and Stories” by Valine Hobbs. On the cover, fire tears through a home’s roof. The central lick of fire stretches into a human-like figure, complete with a face and fire for hair. The bottom of the cover reads “Keep the fire demon from your home.”

Inside, the book, from 1926, tells children the importance of having a clean chimney and being mindful of your Halloween costume when lighting candles to place inside a jack-o’-lantern.

Seeing that book next to toy fire engines reminds Harbine of the universal experience of learning about fire and fire safety as a child.

Some lessons involve sitting in the front seat of a fire truck and hearing about the work firefighters do, while others require students to pretend to check if door handles were hot during a mock escape from a burning building. And of course, we all learned to “Stop, drop and roll.”

“Everybody has some kind of memory about fire in a different way,” she said. “For a lot of us, we do have people who have been affected by fire in some shape or form.”

Harbine has relatives who volunteer to cook and set up camp for firefighters during wildfire season, and her grandfather once spent a summer as a smoke jumper.

Whether a visitor’s story involves fire as a destructive force or fire as an agent of renewal, “Fire: Rebirth and Resilience” will spark – no pun intended – their memory.

“There are these through lines in history, and it’s one of those things that when we think about fire, it can often feel like we’re talking about a single event, where we’re just talking about devastation and loss,” she said. “But fires are these huge catalysts for change. They’ve always been that way.”