{"id":29593,"date":"2026-01-11T22:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T03:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/?p=29593"},"modified":"2026-01-11T22:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T03:18:08","slug":"the-great-savannah-fire-of-1820","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/2026\/01\/the-great-savannah-fire-of-1820\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Savannah Fire of 1820"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Today is the anniversary of the Great Savannah Fire of January 11, 1820, which destroyed over 500 building and costing roughly $4 million (equivalent to $90 million in 2024) in damages. The fire was caused by months of very dry conditions followed by a day with strong winds from the northwest. The high winds fanned the flames and  spread the damaging fires for several hours after it started in a livery stable at around 2 am. It was the worst fire that Savannah had had up until that time. Adding to the impact, the burned out buildings and exposed cellars accumulated stagnant water and provided a fertile breeding ground for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Yellow_fever_mosquito\">yellow fever mosquitoes<\/a>\u00a0leading to a severe\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Yellow_fever\">yellow fever<\/a>\u00a0epidemic in the city later that year. You can read more about the causes and impacts of the flood at <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Great_Savannah_Fire_of_1820\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Great_Savannah_Fire_of_1820<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/savannahhistory.home.blog\/2021\/03\/01\/1820\/\">https:\/\/savannahhistory.home.blog\/2021\/03\/01\/1820\/<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/01\/savannah1820fire.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"953\" height=\"750\" src=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/01\/savannah1820fire.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-29594\" srcset=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/01\/savannah1820fire.jpg 953w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/01\/savannah1820fire-300x236.jpg 300w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/01\/savannah1820fire-768x604.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 953px) 100vw, 953px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is the anniversary of the Great Savannah Fire of January 11, 1820, which destroyed over 500 building and costing roughly $4 million (equivalent to $90 million in 2024) in damages. The fire was caused by months of very dry conditions followed by a day with strong winds from the northwest. The high winds fanned [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":29594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29593"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29595,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29593\/revisions\/29595"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}