Great Peshtigo Fire

I
"The woods and heavens were all on fire," the smoke blocked the sun, and the rising moon turned red. For witnesses of the worst fire in American history, it was a sure sign of the apocalypse. On October 8, 1871, a fire with hurricane force winds consumed more than 1,000,000 acres of farms, forests, sawmills, and small towns of Wisconsin and upper Michigan. In its path of destruction an estimated 1,500 people lost their lives. The Peshtigo fire, as it was dubbed, represents the greatest tragedy of its kind in North America. The conflagration occurred the same day as the great Chicago fire and has relegated to a lesser place in annals of north America disasters. Yet, the natural forces unleashed that day would for evermore be known as a "firestorm."
Only a trace of precipitation fell on the area surrounding the Green Bay of Wisconsin between July and October. Drought in the vast timberland dried up the ponds, bogs, and creeks causing normal swampy areas to be dry beds of clay. The abnormally dry forest provided some benefits for the settlers. The opportunity to clear more land and step up the lumber harvest did not go to waste. With the lumbering practices of the time wasting 1/4 of the tree during its harvest, large piles of sawdust and waste, called slash, built up through the forest. Small debris fires set by loggers and settlers burned unchecked. These fires were commonplace to the people living and working in the towns and saw mills. One resident recalled that fall that "the red on the distant hillsides was created by flames rather than the glow of frosted oaks." The fires combined with the tinderbox conditions of the forest laid a foundation for disaster.
The night of October 8 seemed like everyone previous with the glow of fires in the distance and black smoke in the air. Hot blasts of wind blew through time to time causing minor concern. A wind storm came that evening providing the last element needed for a huge fire. Warmer temperatures fueled the patch fires cutting the telegraph wires and isolating towns from each other. As the fires picked up they began to rage and burn together, all while moving rapidly. The heat of the blaze allowed it to move through some partially burned areas. Isolation of the farms and the speed of the fire caught many inhabitants unprepared.
A sound resembling a thousand stampeding cows or the "heavy discharge of artillery" preceded the horrors that followed. The thick smoke made it difficult to see even a few feet ahead. Out of the darkness leapt large firewhirls that twisted off tree tops while they burst into flame. Flames shot into the sky like lightning as the wind showered the landscape with fire brands, cinders and hot sand. One man recalled how "great volumes of fire would rise up, fifty feet from the top of the trees, leap over thirty acres of clearing and, in an instant, flame up in the forests beyond." As the fire continued it grew exponentially. Exploding marsh gases hovered over the ground like black balloons until they exploded above the ground throwing fire like shrapnel. Houses and people literally burst into flame. "The fire arrived . . . not as a wave or a surge of flame but as though [it] suddenly dropped from the sky."
Describing the Peshtigo holocaust as a "tornado of fire" is not an exaggeration. Firewhirls, small fire tornados, traveled ahead of the blaze at 6 miles per/hour. Surface winds only blew 15 40 miles/hour but the firestorm fed itself creating internal winds of up to 80 miles/hour. The fire became a great convection feeding itself and drawing in oxygen and fuel. Hurricane force winds ripped the roofs of houses, blew over barns, uprooted trees, and tossed a 1,000 lb. wagon like it was a tumbleweed. A family fleeing from the flames found themselves picked up and tossed about by the wind. Papers and wood caught in the updraft traveled as far north as Canada. "The peculiar physics of mass fire had multiplied its fury into a maelstrom of energy equivalent to the chain reaction of a thermonuclear bomb. There was no defense for the populace but flight."
Panic quickly settled on the fleeing settlers. With the flames moving so rapidly, people found themselves surrounded with no apparent escape. As families fled amid a barrage of falling embers and hot ash their clothes and hair would catch on fire. The heat burned many, causing large blisters on their backs arms and faces. Attempting to find refuge, families fled into sellers where they died from asphyxiation. Others seeking safety jumped into wells and shallow marshes where they were boiled alive. In Peshtigo terrified cattle stampeded over a group laying in a stream. Others losing all sense of reason tried to escape by running into large buildings, which burst into flame and collapsed. Settlers surrounded by flames in the forest laid down face first in the middle of clearings. For some it saved their lives. The majority of the survivors spent the night in rivers, ponds and the Green Bay. Those in the water could only have their heads above the water for a few seconds due to the intense heat, which caused debris to burn on the surface. For the victims consumed by fire on land, most were burned beyond recognition some even being reduced to ashes.
The Peshtigo fire pressed a heavy mark on the lives of the victims in 1871. In Peshtigo, all that stands as a reminder to the disaster is a small memorial. Although the fire is not well known, it is a disaster in every description. The destructive force of the Peshtigo fire ended hundreds of human lives and destroyed an ecosystem. Twenty six years after the fire the area remained void of any valuable forest growth.
The Peshtigo blaze lead to new forest management programs by the federal government. Less wasteful harvesting techniques were implemented to prevent future large scale destruction of forests. New fire policies on fighting and prevention developed in the area due to the Peshtigo blaze. The government along with the settlers began to see the forest was not a limitless natural resource. Modern day conservation and environmental principals found their start at the end of the eighteenth century because such natural disasters.

An introduction and facts about about the Peshtigo Fire, 8th October 1871. On October 8, 1871, the most devastating forest fire in American history swept through Northeast Wisconsin, claiming 1200 lives. The anniversary of the Peshtigo Fire usually receives little note outside the region because another horrific fire the same night -- the great Chicago Fire -- still seems to hog the headlines. "Part of it is that myth of the cow -- Mrs. O'Leary's cow tipping over the lantern," said an archivist for the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Area Research Center, referring to the way the Chicago fire allegedly started. "And, Chicago was and still is a bigger city." While Chicago's story may be more colorful, researchers still find the Peshtigo Fire worth studying. The Area Research Center, the state historical society's depository for records for 11 counties in Northeast Wisconsin, has papers and manuscripts of all kinds. The story of the Peshtigo Fire, gleaned from survivor accounts and conjecture, is that railroad workers clearing land for tracks that Sunday evening started a brush fire which, somehow, became an inferno. It had been an unusually dry summer, and the fire moved fast. Some survivors said it moved so fast it was "like a tornado." The sudden, convulsive speed of the flames consumed available oxygen. Some trying to flee burst into flames. It scorched 1.2 million acres, although it skipped over Green Bay to burn parts of Door and Kewaunee counties. The damage estimate was at million, about the same as for the Chicago Fire. The fire also burned 16 other towns, but the damage in Peshtigo was the worst. The city was gone in an hour. In Peshtigo alone, 800 lives were lost. "What most researchers find so fascinating is the effect it (the Peshtigo Fire) had on people's lives. It was so horrific. "Some people thought it was the end of the world." The fire produced countless stories of heroics and tragedy, which are collected at the research center, as well as the Peshtigo Fire Museum in downtown Peshtigo. There's the story of a man carrying a woman to safety he thought was his wife. When he found out it wasn't her, he went crazy. People said the Peshtigo River was the only haven from the fire, and one 13 year-old German immigrant girl said she held onto the horn of a cow all night in the river to survive. Peshtigo Fire receives just a small mention -- if any -- in history books. But Stella Van Bogart, curator of the Peshtigo Fire Museum, maintains that the Peshtigo Fire still generates plenty of attention. "Every year, we get a lot of mail, asking about it," she said. "The whole city was gone within one hour. It still keeps people wondering." The Peshtigo Fire Museum, located in a former church building, is located at the corner of Oconto Street and Ellis Avenue in Peshtigo. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, beginning Memorial Day weekend. Admission is free.
	THE STORY OF THAT FATEFULL NIGHT
	I "The woods and heavens were all on fire," the smoke blocked the sun, and the rising moon turned red. For witnesses of the worst fire in American history, it was a sure sign of the apocalypse. On October 8, 1871, a fire with hurricane force winds consumed more than 1,000,000 acres of farms, forests, sawmills, and small towns of Wisconsin and upper Michigan. In its path of destruction an estimated 1,500 people lost their lives. The Peshtigo fire, as it was dubbed, represents the greatest tragedy of its kind in North America. The conflagration occurred the same day as the great Chicago fire and has relegated to a lesser place in annals of north America disasters. Yet, the natural forces unleashed that day would for evermore be known as a "firestorm." Only a trace of precipitation fell on the area surrounding the Green Bay of Wisconsin between July and October. Drought in the vast timberland dried up the ponds, bogs, and creeks causing normal swampy areas to be dry beds of clay. The abnormally dry forest provided some benefits for the settlers. The opportunity to clear more land and step up the lumber harvest did not go to waste. With the lumbering practices of the time wasting 1/4 of the tree during its harvest, large piles of sawdust and waste, called slash, built up through the forest. Small debris fires set by loggers and settlers burned unchecked. These fires were commonplace to the people living and working in the towns and saw mills. One resident recalled that fall that "the red on the distant hillsides was created by flames rather than the glow of frosted oaks." The fires combined with the tinderbox conditions of the forest laid a foundation for disaster. The night of October 8 seemed like everyone previous with the glow of fires in the distance and black smoke in the air. Hot blasts of wind blew through time to time causing minor concern. A wind storm came that evening providing the last element needed for a huge fire. Warmer temperatures fueled the patch fires cutting the telegraph wires and isolating towns from each other. As the fires picked up they began to rage and burn together, all while moving rapidly. The heat of the blaze allowed it to move through some partially burned areas. Isolation of the farms and the speed of the fire caught many inhabitants unprepared. A sound resembling a thousand stampeding cows or the "heavy discharge of artillery" preceded the horrors that followed. The thick smoke made it difficult to see even a few feet ahead. Out of the darkness leapt large firewhirls that twisted off tree tops while they burst into flame. Flames shot into the sky like lightning as the wind showered the landscape with fire brands, cinders and hot sand. One man recalled how "great volumes of fire would rise up, fifty feet from the top of the trees, leap over thirty acres of clearing and, in an instant, flame up in the forests beyond." As the fire continued it grew exponentially. Exploding marsh gases hovered over the ground like black balloons until they exploded above the ground throwing fire like shrapnel. Houses and people literally burst into flame. "The fire arrived . . . not as a wave or a surge of flame but as though [it] suddenly dropped from the sky." Describing the Peshtigo holocaust as a "tornado of fire" is not an exaggeration. Firewhirls, small fire tornados, traveled ahead of the blaze at 6 miles per/hour. Surface winds only blew 15 40 miles/hour but the firestorm fed itself creating internal winds of up to 80 miles/hour. The fire became a great convection feeding itself and drawing in oxygen and fuel. Hurricane force winds ripped the roofs of houses, blew over barns, uprooted trees, and tossed a 1,000 lb. wagon like it was a tumbleweed. A family fleeing from the flames found themselves picked up and tossed about by the wind. Papers and wood caught in the updraft traveled as far north as Canada. "The peculiar physics of mass fire had multiplied its fury into a maelstrom of energy equivalent to the chain reaction of a thermonuclear bomb. There was no defense for the populace but flight." Panic quickly settled on the fleeing settlers. With the flames moving so rapidly, people found themselves surrounded with no apparent escape. As families fled amid a barrage of falling embers and hot ash their clothes and hair would catch on fire. The heat burned many, causing large blisters on their backs arms and faces. Attempting to find refuge, families fled into sellers where they died from asphyxiation. Others seeking safety jumped into wells and shallow marshes where they were boiled alive. In Peshtigo terrified cattle stampeded over a group laying in a stream. Others losing all sense of reason tried to escape by running into large buildings, which burst into flame and collapsed. Settlers surrounded by flames in the forest laid down face first in the middle of clearings. For some it saved their lives. The majority of the survivors spent the night in rivers, ponds and the Green Bay. Those in the water could only have their heads above the water for a few seconds due to the intense heat, which caused debris to burn on the surface. For the victims consumed by fire on land, most were burned beyond recognition some even being reduced to ashes. The Peshtigo fire pressed a heavy mark on the lives of the victims in 1871. In Peshtigo, all that stands as a reminder to the disaster is a small memorial. Although the fire is not well known, it is a disaster in every description. The destructive force of the Peshtigo fire ended hundreds of human lives and destroyed an ecosystem. Twenty six years after the fire the area remained void of any valuable forest growth. The Peshtigo blaze lead to new forest management programs by the federal government. Less wasteful harvesting techniques were implemented to prevent future large scale destruction of forests. New fire policies on fighting and prevention developed in the area due to the Peshtigo blaze. The government along with the settlers began to see the forest was not a limitless natural resource. Modern day conservation and environmental principals found their start at the end of the eighteenth century because such natural disasters.
	Memorial Site. This memorial was erected in 1951 and is the site where at least 800 victims lost their lives on the 8th October 1871, 350 unidentified victims are buried at another area of the Peshtigo Fire Museum.

THE GREAT PESHTIGO FIRE
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