Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917

Rather than quickly rebuilding, the government commissioned the French architect Ernest Hébrard to design a new urban plan for the burned areas and for the future expansion of the city.

French navy official Dufour de la Thuillerie writes in his report that "I saw Thessaloniki, a city of more than 150,000 people, burn".

By European standards, the city's planning was chaotic and the unhygienic conditions that prevailed in the poorer areas were described as "unacceptable" by the government in Athens.

With authorization by the Venizelos' government, Entente Forces had landed troops in Thessaloniki in 1915, in order to support their Serb allies in the Macedonian Front.

In August 1916, Venizelist officers launched an uprising that resulted in the establishment of the Provisional Government of National Defence in the city, essentially dividing Greece into two sovereign states, one represented by Eleftherios Venizelos, and the other by King Constantine.

Thessaloniki soon became a transit center for Allied troops and supplies, and the city filled with thousands of French and British soldiers, numbering up to 200,000.

[1][a] According to the findings of the investigation by the Court of Thessaloniki, the fire began on Saturday 5 (OS, Julian Calendar) /18 (NS) August 1917 at roughly 15:30, by accident at a small house of refugees at Olympiados 3, in the Mevlane district between the center and the Upper City when a spark from the kitchen fire fell in a pile of straw and ignited it.

In the early morning of the next day (6/19 August), the wind changed direction and the two fronts of the fire destroyed the whole commercial center.

At 12:00, the fire passed around the grounds of the church of Haghia Sophia without burning it, and continued eastward up to the road of Ethnikis Amynis (former name: Hamidie), where it stopped.

[3] More significantly, the city government did not have an organized fire brigade; a few firefighting teams were privately owned by insurance companies that protected only their subscribers.

The burned region was between the roads of Aghiou Dimitriou, Leontos Sofou, Nikis, Ethnikis Amynis, Alexandrou Svolou, and Egnatia (from Aghia Sofia).

[1][page needed] The care for the fire victims started immediately: Greek authorities constructed 100 houses to shelter 800 families.