The blaze in Breisach showed no sign of dying down even in the dead of night. Those left in the streets fought desperately to put it out, but it was beyond them. The one small mercy amid the disaster was that the entire city had not been reduced to ashes.
A city's greatest enemy is not war but fire. That is why each district is laid out so that even if a fire breaks out, it cannot spread across the whole city.
In other words, what was burning was the harbor district and nothing else. The fire had not spread beyond it. The problem was that the harbor was the largest district in Breisach.
The city's losses in property were staggering.
For the administrator and his bureaucrats, it was a catastrophe, as though the sky itself had fallen.
Just as in Schafen, those who made their living around the harbor suffered worst of all. All we could do was see to the refugees' safety.
