Here is an article from the Bodie Foundation about the 1932 fire:

Having journals and letters written by Bodie residents can offer insights into events in the town’s history. A copy of one letter in the Bodie files tells the story of the June 23, 1932 fire that destroyed about 70 percent of the town 87 years ago.

"Bodie Bill" - age 2 1/2 - who supposedly started the 1932 fire
Photo by Burton Frasher - Pamona Public Library Collection

Most Bodie visitors know the basic story about the 1932 fire. A young boy, named Billy Godward, was said to have been playing with matches behind the Old Sawdust Corner saloon. Much of the story has been passed down from old-timers about how little Billy ended up behind the saloon with matches. It was said he was attending a birthday party at the schoolhouse for a little girl in town. When the dessert came out, it was not cake and ice cream, but instead Jell-O, which was introduced close to the turn of the century and rapidly became more popular, especially with the advent of refrigeration.

The mother of the little girl having the birthday party, Margaret Bennett, wrote a letter to a friend after the fire.

“As the day was Winifred’s fourth birthday I had a party for her at the schoolhouse. Had just served refreshments to the children and they were starting home when the camp fire bell began ringing.” It was every Bodieites’ worst nightmare. A fire on a windy day. Margaret looked out and saw smoke at the back of the Sawdust Corner Saloon. After leaving her children with a friend, she ran down to help. “I helped Mr. Cain move some of his valuable papers to the vault…when the postmistress ran out and yelled for someone to drive a car away that she had loaded her things on, so I jumped in.”

She drove several cars to safety that terrible day. “Had to drive right up Main Street with fires raging on both sides. One time a big ember dropped in the seat beside me and burned a big hole in the leather. I could not stop so I just threw it out and it was surely hot.”

She also discussed with her correspondent about how the fire started. “Bill Godward’s little 3-year-old son was the cause of the fire. Just the day before the big fire I saw him with matches and told Mrs. Bell she had better keep an eye of him as some day he would set the whole town on fire and then to think that the very next day he did.”

Efforts to fight the fire were hampered by the pipes from the reservoir on Bodie Bluff being clogged by sediment. Bucket brigades were organized from the creek, and according to Margaret, 40 men from the Bridgeport fire department arrived to help the locals’ efforts. “I fell in the creek a time or so, trying to dip buckets of water,” she recalled. Many former Bodie residents interviewed about the fire said the wind changing direction saved what is left of Bodie today.

When you visit Bodie on a warm summer day, reflect on how the local people tried to save their homes and businesses on that fiery June day and remember, there is no smoking allowed in the Bodie townsite.