Information point:
Crossroads West/Oststraße

"At 10 o'clock in the morning, when several citizens had left and gone out, the call of fire went out; the fire bell was rung. Now the fire broke out down in the town at Stübben's house on the square, which was just the last house and faced south-east. The wind drove the blazing flames straight onto Hermes' building and the house. .... The fire spread like lightning and in a few minutes you could see the front and rear shoulders and Groetel's house in flames (...). It was not possible to resist the fire when the water left. Although people flocked from the neighboring villages to help, nothing could be started, except that movables were saved; for the fire was chased by the wind as fast as possible to the Mittelstraße [today's Weststraße from the church to the boarding school building] and Hinterstraße [no longer existing, western parallel street of today's Weststraße]. This meant that the flames could be seen raging crosswise in the streets, so that nobody could pass. In two hours, 131 houses with all their fruit, food, provisions and chattels were reduced to rubble and no one was able to save anything. 31 cellars, which were fireproof, remained intact; but everything else had collapsed, and everything that was in them was burned (...)
The frightening roar of the wind, the roaring and puffing of the flames, the crunching of the fruit, the crashing of the collapsing houses, the flames rising from all the food put the citizens in the greatest fear and anxiety, and they seemed to be completely stunned. They had encamped around the town, each with his rescued belongings, and had to lie out in the open for several nights until they found shelter in the neighboring villages. The cattle were running around in the fields and gardens in confusion and bellowing outrageously." [Dham, Franz Arnold, Chronica Schmallenbergensis, in: Schmallenberger Heimatblätter 23/1970, p. 9].