Explore a bit of fire data
The Committee found, however, that there were "gaps" and inconsistencies in the reports. The annual summaries often contained different information than what had been submitted in the incremental reports. They tended to offer more detail about cause and value of lost property (neither of which was easy to establish within days of the fire), though it was universally unclear what was included in the tally of burned buildings: some governors included only complete losses, while others described damaged property as well.
In other words, there are many reasons to take the 1865 volume with a grain of salt. The beautifully laid-out tables give us only a rough sense of what burned, when, and where. You won't find many answers in them - or in the maps we made of them - but you will find that they produce an endless list of questions.