This year marks the 172 nd anniversary of the Great Fire that destroyed much of Nantucket’s downtown. Recently, the Nantucket Historical Association sponsored a “Great Fire Tour,” complete with a vintage 1945 pumper truck on loan from the Nantucket Hotel. With about ten people aboard, the fire truck began slowly lumbering through Nantucket’s downtown – vastly different today from what it was in 1846. “Today it’s a much wider street. The buildings are a little more spaced out and not all of them are made from wood. Back then it was a much more narrow street, easily congested. All the buildings and sidewalks were made of wood,” said Sean Allen, a senior interpreter at the Nantucket Whaling Museum who’s narrating the tour. In the 1840s, Nantucket was at the peak of its prominence as a whaling port, with over 70 whaling vessels, and many support industries along the waterfront. “All the blacksmith shops, all of these different oil processing facilities such as candle factories, oil