On Monday, June 18, 1888, during hot weather and shifting winds, a fire discovered at 1 p.m. in John Baker's Hotel in DuBois spread rapidly through the borough's largely wooden central district. DuBois's firefighting equipment was limited to a single hose cart connected to a broken water line, and bucket brigades could not stop the flames. Driven first toward Main Street, the fire consumed everything from there to State Street and south to Weber Avenue, then after a wind shift at 3 p.m. spread farther down West Long Avenue. Efforts to stop it with dynamite only made it spread faster. Around 6 p.m., a steamer truck from the Renovo fire company, sent for by John E. DuBois, arrived by train, and with renewed effort by local citizens the fire was finally halted nearly nine hours after it began, at the Terpe House at Williams and Courtney Street. By then fourteen blocks had been leveled, more than 100 acres had burned, an estimated 500 to 600 buildings had been destroyed, nearly 3,000 people were homeless, and losses were estimated at $1,012,950, with only 10 to 15 percent of property insured. Displaced residents were sent to the DuBois Fairgrounds, where tents provided by the U.S. Army were erected, and John E. DuBois brought in cooks from his lumbering camps to prepare breakfast for 1,500 people the next morning. Although no one was killed, two dogs died in the flames. After a Philadelphia committee recommended against aid because it believed DuBois would not last, Governor James Addams Beaver did not follow that advice. The community responded by forming Volunteer Hose Company Number 1 on June 19, 1888, electing James Whitehill as fire chief, passing an ordinance on June 20 banning new wooden structures in key parts of the borough, beginning a new water system with a reservoir in upper Clear Run completed in 1891, and rebuilding almost immediately, with merchants clearing properties and planning larger construction as DuBois moved toward recovery.