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As we witness the BP oilhemorrhage devastate communities and ravage a precious natural resource, thepast reminds us of a similar scenario that occurred in northeastern Wisconsinand Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (UP) 139 years agotheworst recorded forest fire in North American history.

The year was1871. Peshtigo, a small frontier town on two sides of a river of the same namein Marinette County, was thriving on the success of the region’s burgeoninglumber industry. Dense forests of oak,maple, beech, ash, elm, cedar, spruce, pine and birch surrounded it, and peopleexploited the resource to their fullest advantage. Homes, barns, town buildingsand boardwalks were constructed from the lumber, and sawdust was used as afloor covering. Peshtigo was also home to the largestwoodenware factory in the country, an enterprise owned by Chicago railroadmagnate William Ogden.





As valuableas the thick forests were, they hindered some forms of development. To farmcrops, a farmer would use the “slash and burn” method to clear land for hishomestead. The northern extensionof the Chicago and Northwestern Railway was under construction, so workerswould cut down and burn the wood that stood in the path of extending therailroad’s right-of-way. Sometimes workers didn’t burn the trees and brush theycleared, and just left it by the wayside, where sparks from steam engines wouldoccasionally ignite the piles in dry weather. The drought that northeasternWisconsin and the UP experienced in the summer of 1871 had rendered wood as dryas tinder. Add human carelessness to the combustible scene, and small forestfires were breaking out throughout the fall, making the citizenry of Peshtigo,as well as those in other localities, so anxious that many began to bury theirmost cherished belongings. They had also grown accustomed to the smell of ashin the air, so when they went to sleep the night of Oct. 8, they didn’t realizeanything was amiss.





In The Great Peshtigo Fire, a firsthand account written by a survivorof the tragedy and published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Rev.Peter Pernin writes that at around 8:30 p.m. “the menacing crimson reflectionon the western sky was rapidly increasing in size and in intensity; in themidst of the unnatural calm and silence reigning around, the strange andterrible noise of fire, strange and unknown thunderous voice of nature.





“The wind was forerunnerof the tempest, increasing in violence, sweeping planks, gate and fencing awayinto space,” Pernin adds.





By 10 p.m., the air wasno longer fit to breathe. Everything, from homes to horses, was aflame. Thelargest group to survive took refuge in a low, marshy piece of ground on theeast side of the Peshtigo River. The next morning, Oct. 9, found 1,152 peopledead (and another 350 believed dead), the towns of Peshtigo and Brusselsobliterated, and a scorched swath of forest 10 miles wide and 40 miles long.





Robert Wells, a reporterfor the Milwaukee Journal, and authorof Fire at Peshtigo, explains that a“convection columna whirling chimney of superheated air generated by thefiresuddenly broke through the blanket of heavier, smoke-laden air into thecolder air above,” thus creating a huge updraft that led to a fire tornado andwhirlwinds of unimaginable proportions and temperatures.





When you ask a person toname the worst fire in American history, most will answer the Great ChicagoFire, which had a human toll of approximately 250 people and destroyed 4 squaremiles, and occurred on the very same dayas the Peshtigo catastrophe. News from the small lumber town 250 miles fromChicago took days to reach the public, and was eclipsed by the sensationalheadlines of the Chicago conflagration. Regardless, hardly a community inWisconsin failed to establish some type of relief organization for victims ofthe Great Peshtigo Fire, and with the supplies and assistance that poured in,villagers rebuilt Peshtigo from the ashes.