Peshtigo Fire
On this day in 1871, the Peshtigo Fire occurred in and around Peshtigo, Wisconsin. It burned 1.2 million acres and killed 1,500 to 2,500 people, making it the deadliest wildfire in history. It occurred on the same day as the Great Chicago Fire but is largely forgotten although it killed at least five times as many people. The Chicago Fire, for comparison, burned just over 2,000 acres. The Great Chicago Fire started around 8:30pm on October 8, 1871, and the Peshtigo Fire started just an hour and a half later.
So, why did these two fires start so close together, stories of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow aside? There had been a drought that year through much of the north-central United States. There had also been rapid clearing of land to accommodate expanding railway lines, building of houses, and expansion of farmable land. The favored way to clear land at the time was slash-and-burn, which entailed cutting down trees and brush and burning them in massive burn piles. The favored theory for why these fires occurred is that the fires from the burn piles escaped the individual piles and merged into several larger fires that rapidly got out of control.
The afternoon of October 8 was windy and hot. Survivors of the Peshtigo Fire reported that they could feel the static electricity in the air all day. As evening approached, so did a line of strong thunderstorms. Winds reached more than 100 miles per hour and lightning ripped through the sky.
Peshtigo residents were used to ash sifting down from the sky from the burn piles for the railway work southwest of town, so it took them awhile to realize that the approaching fire was anything out of the ordinary. This delay in acting may have resulted in an increased death toll.
A section from my book, Of the Embers:
All hell is riding into town on the back of the wind. A wall of flame that looks a mile high and five miles wide takes up the whole southwestern sky, moving rapidly toward town. The heat is suffocating, making breathing nigh impossible. Burning embers rain from the sky, lighting the wooden sidewalk and roofs on fire where they land. Some men try to douse the flames, but can’t hope to keep up. The flaming bits falling down from the sky are as thick as a snowstorm now, and I’m trying to ignore the pinpricks of pain where they land on the bare skin of my neck and arms.
A few people are rushing toward the river and diving into the water to save themselves, while others are heading away from town on the road on foot and on horseback. The sky seems filled with flames, which are starting to pull together and are lazily circling counter-clockwise in the sky overhead. The circle gains speed and intensity, the roar from it thrumming in my chest. I see with horror that the flames have become a mammoth fire tornado. The tornado picks up rail cars and houses into the air and tosses them around as if they were toys. The roofs of businesses and houses seem to explode off as the tornado brushes over them.
The press of people rushing toward the river increases, with most of the folks on the other side trying to make it to the bridge across the river to get to the side I’m on. It makes sense that the fire wouldn’t be able to jump the river, but the falling embers and the fiery tornado have started some buildings on this side of the river on fire already. I fear that the press of people crowding onto the bridge will make it collapse under their weight or that someone will get trampled. I rush toward my end of the bridge, yelling at them to calm down and come across in an orderly way. Time seems to grind to a near stop as I watch helplessly.
I see a large hot ash strike the footing of the bridge on the other side, catching it on fire. The old timbers of the bridge crackle into flame, the fire shooting across the entire span of the bridge in a moment. The clothes and hair of the people on the bridge burst into flame and the screams of pain and fear are like a physical blow to me. The folks on the bridge lose hope of making it to either shore and leap over both sides of the bridge and into the water of the Peshtigo River below, joining several others who were already in the water.
Several people are shouting that they can’t swim and are sputtering and choking as they try to stay afloat. I see people pushed under the water by other people climbing onto their backs in their terror. There is one young girl who is in the river, maybe eight or nine years old, holding onto the horns of a brown milk-cow and trying to scramble out of the water onto its back. She loses her grip and I lose sight of her pink nightgown as she is pulled underwater.