On the night of October 8, 1871, women tore their children from their beds, men formed ad hoc fire brigades, and terrified residents of Peshtigo, Wisconsin fled what would become the wildfire. the deadliest in American history. So why has the Peshtigo forest fire faded from national memory?
The story begins in a thriving forest town surrounded by dense forests. The seemingly endless trees near Lake Michigan sparked a flourishing logging trade that attracted immigrants from all over Europe, starting in the 1780s. Thanks to its prime location near Chicago, the world’s largest market timber trade in the world at the time, Peshtigo flourished, chopping down trees for a growing country that needed timber for its homes and new towns.
But Peshtigo’s trees turned out to be his downfall.
The confluence of events that led to the devastating fire set off “a low rumbling sound, like the distant approach of a train,” witnesses to the chaos later recalled. Soon it became clear that the city itself was consumed by flames. By the time the residents had time to react, it was already too late. Survivors describe a cyclone-like firestorm, a whirlwind that consumed everything around it.
The conditions were so extreme that people wondered if they had been incited by a comet (this theory has never been proven). A huge area of 1.2 million acres – the size of the state of Connecticut – burned that night.
A bird’s-eye view of Peshtigo, Wisconsin established in September 1871, just a month before the fire. (Credit: The Library of Congress)
Building after building caught fire, and many burned down before anyone could find a way out. Those who managed to reach the river watched helplessly as their entire city burned down. Cows and horses also rushed into the river, creating a scene of anguish and chaos. Some who ran to the river drowned or died of hypothermia.
Those who made it until the next morning found only “a dark and desolate meadow, the very location of the streets being almost uncertain.” One journalist wrote that “there was no vestige of human habitation left, and the smoldering, icy and miserable group, mad with unspeakable terror and despair … could only vaguely recognize themselves in the dark light of day.”
That summer, 1871, was one of the driest on record. A 20th-century reconstruction conducted by the National Weather Service showed that after a long period of warmer-than-usual temperatures and drought, a low pressure front with cooler temperatures produced winds across the region. It turned smaller fires into a giant conflagration.
Winds at a hundred miles an hour fanned the fire even more, with cool air fanning the flames and causing a gigantic column of hot air to rise. It produced even more wind, a vicious cycle that turned a routine wildfire into hell.
Peshtigo’s forestry industry was partly responsible for the disaster. In an era before responsible forest management practices, loggers were content to strip the land without considering the potential fire hazards they created. They dumped the waste from logging operations into large piles of tinder that became the perfect fuel for the October 8 fire. And the railroad operations cleared the land using small fires, leaving behind piles of leftover wood.
The city itself was a powder keg waiting to ignite. Most of its structures were made of wood, as were its sidewalks. Even the streets were paved with wood chips.
The weather was the match that turned these dangerous conditions into an unprecedented fire. Smaller forest fires had raged in the area for days, but on the night of the 8th the winds picked up and the flames reached Peshtigo. Between 500 and 800 people have died in Peshtigo – half the city’s population – and between 1,200 and 2,400 people have died in the region across northeastern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. However, as the registers of most of the fire-ravaged communities also burned, it was not possible to identify or count all the victims.
But something else happened on the night of October 8 – another blaze, fueled by the same conditions, in nearby Chicago. The Great Chicago Fire left 100,000 people homeless, destroyed over 17,000 wooden structures, and killed 300. Although it was not as bad as the Peshtigo fire, the big city fire dominated the headlines and history books.
While the Wisconsin blaze has been eclipsed by the Chicago blaze, it is still studied by forest managers and firefighters, who use it as an example of poor forestry practices and the power of unpredictable wildfires.
Another group hasn’t forgotten about the fire either: the people of Peshtigo. The city was rebuilt after the fire and placed the remains of more than 300 of its residents – far too charred to be identified as male or female – in a mass grave.
