Fire Maps

The Fire Maps of Belleville

What fire insurance maps can tell us

Fire insurance maps were created in the late 19th century and early 20th century to help fire insurance agents judge the risk involved in insuring properties of all kinds. They show outlines of individual buildings and were water-coloured to indicate different kinds of building material such as brick, frame or stone.

Other information included the number of storeys, location of doors, windows, chimneys and elevators, use of structure (dwelling, hotel, church, etc.), the name of the company of a commercial property and street address. Other features included lot lines, street widths, water pipes, hydrants and cisterns, the presence of fire-fighting facilities, or notes about the lack of them.

Because these maps were expensive and time-consuming to produce, they were updated by drawing changes on pieces of paper and pasting the paper onto existing maps.

While the production of fire insurance plans ceased in Canada in 1975, today these old maps are invaluable sources of information for scholars and researchers.

The maps on these pages are taken from the Goad maps of Belleville in the late 1800s. The Charles E. Goad map-making company was established in Montreal, Quebec, in 1875 and became the most comprehensive company of its kind in its coverage of Canada. By 1910, Goad and his surveyors had created fire insurance plans for more than 1,300 Canadian communities.