THE GREAT FIRE
The Tragedy That Reshaped Nadiria

The Great Fire of 1883 was perhaps the worst calamity that ever befell Nadiria. Sadly, the Great Fire was, in fact, no accident. As Nadiria matured and became a more complex society, certain Houses, or Families became unfriendly towards each other in their rivalry and competition for limited resources. The most famous of these rivalries was between the Kilbourne Family and the Rutherford Family.

Angus Kilbourne was the patriarch of the wealthiest Family in Nadiria, and easily maintained that status. Since the Kilbourne's shipping company, The Southern Star helped to finance and resupply the colony, certain exceptions were made for Kilbourne to the rule that all Churchmembers had to donate all their belongings to the church. This fact was resented by the William Rutherford, who also had a far ranging business empire prior to joining the Church. Rutherford envied Kilbourne's power and financial arrangements; he also had secretly retained many of his business interests, which he continued to profit from. Their outspoken rivalry manifested itself in loud debates and arguments in public, some escalating almost to the point of fisticuffs. Rutherford even published inflammatory tracts about Kilbourne and his family in order to stirpublic outcry. Many Council sessions were dedicated to solving disputes and scandalous slurs between the two.

How the Great Fire started is still a mystery, but it did start in Angus Kilbourne's warehouse in the Upper Level and quickly spread downward, causing major damage to the colony, and much loss of life. Many suspected Rutherford of hiring someone to start the fire, and some say that he started it himself. The Watch did report that a man was seen fleeing the warehouses in much haste that night. After pusuit, though, the elusive perpetrator eluded the Watchman. Soon, though, smoke was detected, and the entire Watch was called out to fight the blaze, and the trail of the mysterious arson ran cold. Any thought of an investigation was dropped though, when it was discovered that William Rutherford apparently died in the conflagration. It was assumed that one of the charred bodies discovered on the warehouse level was his.

All told, fifty-three people died in the catastrophe, as well as a large section of Nadiria was destroyed. The entire warehouse section that housed the Kilbourne areas was completely gutted. Smoke from the blaze filled the three top levels of the colony, killing most of those who perished in those locations. The intense heat melted the ice shelf enclosing the warehouse section, causing massive flooding in the lower levels. Most of that year's harvest was destroyed by the flooding, and the Power Plant was severely damaged. It took almost two years to fully repair all the damage caused by the Great Fire, but the lives of the survivors were forever darkened.

The social structure of the colony was also irreparably damaged. Many scholars believe that in the wake if the Fire, the spirit of unity and idealism had gone from Nadiria. Political and spiritual differences became deeply rooted in the very fabric of the colony. The Great Fire set in motion several factors that eventually culminated in the Division of 1888, which permanently split the colony into seperate political factions.