Peshtigo fire

Peshtigo fire
Extent of wildfire damage
Location	Peshtigo, Wisconsin
Coordinates	45°03′N 87°45′W / 45.05°N 87.75°W / 45.05; -87.75Coordinates: 45°03′N 87°45′W / 45.05°N 87.75°W / 45.05; -87.75
Statistics
Cost	Unknown
Date(s)	October 8, 1871 (1871-10-08)
Burned area	1,200,000 acres (490,000 ha)
Cause	Small fires whipped up by high winds in dry conditions
Deaths	1,500–2,500 (estimated)
Map

Two pieces of lumber that survived the fire

The Peshtigo fire was a very large forest fire that took place on October 8, 1871, in northeastern Wisconsin, United States, including much of the southern half of the Door Peninsula and adjacent parts of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The largest community in the affected area was Peshtigo, Wisconsin. The fire burned approximately 1,200,000 acres (490,000 ha) and is the deadliest wildfire in recorded history,^[1] with the number of deaths estimated between 1,500^[1] and 2,500.^[2]

Occurring on the same day as the more famous Great Chicago Fire, the Peshtigo fire has been largely forgotten, even though it killed far more people.^[3][4] Several cities in Michigan, including Holland and Manistee (across Lake Michigan from Peshtigo) and Port Huron (at the southern end of Lake Huron), also had major fires on the same day.

Firestorm[]

The setting of small fires was a common way to clear forest land for farming and railroad construction. On the day of the Peshtigo fire, a cold front moved in from the west, bringing strong winds that fanned the fires out of control and escalated them to massive proportions.^[5] A firestorm ensued. In the words of Gess and Lutz, in a firestorm "superheated flames of at least 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit ... advance on winds of 110 miles per hour or stronger. The diameter of such a fire ranges from one thousand to ten thousand feet ... When a firestorm erupts in a forest, it is a blowup, nature's nuclear explosion ... "^[6]:101

By the time it was over, 1,875 square miles (4,860 km² or 1.2 million acres) of forest had been consumed,^[7][8][9] an area fifty percent larger than the U.S. state of Rhode Island. Twelve communities were destroyed.

An accurate death toll has never been determined because all local records were destroyed in the fire. It's estimated that anywhere between 1,200 to 2,500 people lost their lives. The 1873 Report to the Wisconsin Legislature listed 1,182 names of dead or missing residents.^[10] In 1870, the Town of Peshtigo had 1,749 residents.^[11][12] More than 350 bodies were buried in a mass grave,^[13] primarily because so many people had died that there was no one left alive who could identify them.

Making for the river

The fire jumped across the Peshtigo River and burned both sides of the town.^[14] Survivors reported that the firestorm generated a fire whirl (described as a tornado) that threw rail cars and houses into the air. Many escaped the flames by immersing themselves in the Peshtigo River, wells, or other nearby bodies of water. Some drowned while others succumbed to hypothermia in the frigid river. The Green Island Light was kept lit during the day because of the obscuring smoke, but the three-masted schooner George L. Newman was wrecked offshore, although the crew was rescued.^[15]

At the same time, another fire burned parts of the Door Peninsula; because of the coincidence, some incorrectly assumed that the fire had jumped across the waters of Green Bay.^{[16][note 1]} In Robinsonville (now Champion) on the Door Peninsula, Sister Adele Brise and other nuns, farmers, and families fled to a local chapel for protection. Although the chapel was surrounded by flames, it survived.^[17][18][19] It spared the then Village of Sturgeon Bay, which at the time remained east of the village's bay.

Comet hypothesis[]

Speculation since 1883 has suggested that the start of the Peshtigo and Chicago fires on the same day was not coincidental, but that all the major fires in Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin that day were caused by impact of fragments from Biela's Comet. This hypothesis was revived in a 1985 book,^[20] reviewed in a 1997 documentary,^[21] and investigated in a 2004 paper published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.^[22] Certain behaviors of the Chicago and Peshtigo fires were cited to support the idea of an extraterrestrial cause.^[23] However, scientists with expertise in the field pointed out that there has never been a credible report of a fire being started by a meteorite.^[24][25]

In any event, no external source of ignition was needed. There were already numerous small fires burning in the area as part of land-clearing operations and similar activities after a tinder-dry summer.^[6][26] These fires generated so much smoke that the Green Island Light was kept lit continuously for weeks before the firestorm erupted.^[27] All that was necessary to trigger the firestorm, plus the other large fires in the Midwest, was a strong wind from the weather front which had moved in that evening.^[26]

Legacy[]

Peshtigo Fire Museum

The Peshtigo Fire Museum, just west of U.S. Highway 41, has a small collection of fire artifacts, first-person accounts, and a graveyard dedicated to victims of the tragedy. A memorial commemorating the fire was dedicated on October 8, 2012 at the bridge over the Peshtigo River.^[28]

The chapel where Sister Adele Brise and others sheltered from the fire has become the National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help. The site is a Marian shrine, where visitors can make religious pilgrimages.^[19]

The combination of wind, topography and ignition sources that generated the firestorm at the boundary between human settlements and natural terrain, is known as the "Peshtigo paradigm".^[29] Those conditions were closely studied by the American and British military during World War II to learn how to recreate firestorms during bombing campaigns against cities in Germany and Japan. The devastating bombing of Tokyo using incendiary devices resulted in death tolls comparable to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.^[29]

See also[]

Other October 8, 1871, fires[]

• Great Chicago Fire
• Great Michigan Fire
• Port Huron Fire of 1871

Other fire disasters in the Great Lakes[]

• Great Hinckley Fire of 1894
• Baudette fire of 1910
• Cloquet fire of 1918
• Thumb Fire of 1881 (see also List of Michigan wildfires)

Notes[]

References[]

Further reading[]

• Ball, Jacqueline A. Wildfire! The 1871 Peshtigo Firestorm. New York: Bearport Pub., 2005. ISBN 1597160113.
• Bergstrom, Bill (June 2003). Peshtigo. Philadelphia: Xlibris Corporation. ISBN 978-1401098889..
• Holbrook, Stewart. "Fire Makes Wind: Wind Makes Fire". American Heritage, vol. 7, no. 5 (August 1956).
• Leschak, Peter M. Ghosts of the Fireground: Echoes of the Great Peshtigo Fire and the Calling of a Wildland Firefighter, New York:HarperCollins, 2003. ISBN 0062517783
• Pernin, Peter. "The Great Peshtigo Fire: An Eyewitness Account," Wisconsin Magazine of History, 54: 4 (Summer, 1971), 246–272.
• Wells, Robert W. Fire at Peshtigo. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968.

External links[]

• "The Fire Fiend" New York Times, October 13, 1871.
• DeLaluzern, Guillaume (October 1871). "IN WISCONSIN. Particulars of the Burning of Williamsonville and Peshtigo – Frightful Number of Deaths". Green Bay Advocate. Archived from the original on May 31, 2013. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
• Geyer, Rev. Kurt (October 6, 1921). "History of the Peshtigo fire, October 8, 1871". . Retrieved March 1, 2013.
• Hipke, Deana C. The Great Peshtigo Fire of 1871 Archived May 29, 2012, at archive.today Web site about fire with survivors' stories.
• "Peshtigo: a tornado of fire revisited". Minnesota Public Radio. Retrieved March 1, 2013.
• "Survivor's stories". Rootsweb.com. Retrieved March 1, 2013.
• The Great Peshtigo Fire Memorial at Find a Grave
• Peshtigo Fire at Wisconsin Historical Society's Dictionary of Wisconsin History
• "Peshtigo fire photos". Wisconsin Historical Society.