The Great Peshtigo Fire

Reverend Peter Pernin was the parish priest for Peshtigo and nearby Marinette, whose churches burned to the ground. He published his account of the fire in 1874. The late William Converse Haygood served as editor of the Wisconsin Magazine of History from 1957 to 1975. He prepared this version of Father Pernin's account on the occasion of the Peshtigo Fire's centennial in 1971. Foreword writer Stephen J. Pyne is a professor at Arizona State University in Tempe and author of numerous books on wildland fire, including Fire in America.

On the night of October 8, 1871, a whirlwind of fire swept through northeastern Wisconsin, destroying the bustling frontier town of Peshtigo. Trees, buildings, and people burst into flames. Metal melted. Sand turned into glass. People thought the end of the world had come. When the “tornado of fire” was over, 2,500 people were dead, and Peshtigo was nothing but a smoking ruin. It was the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history. The Great Peshtigo Fire: Stories and Science from America’s Deadliest Firestorm explores the history, science, and legacy of the 1871 Peshtigo Fire at a fourth-grade reading level. Readers will learn about the history of settlement, agriculture, and forestry in 19th-century Wisconsin. This illuminating text covers a diverse range of topics that will enrich the reader’s understanding of the Peshtigo Fire, including the building and land-use practices of the time that made the area ripe for such a fire, the weather patterns that fostered widespread fires throughout the upper Midwest in the summer and fall of 1871, and exciting first-person accounts that vividly bring the `victims’ stories to life. Connections made between the Peshtigo Fire and the history of fire prevention in the United States encourage critical thinking about issues that remain controversial to this day, such as planned burns and housing development restrictions near forested areas. The Great Peshtigo Fire: Stories and Science from America’s Deadliest Firestorm will inform and captivate its readers as it journeys through the horrifying history of the Peshtigo Fire.

A novelist and historian team up to tell the story of the October 1871 fire in the lumber town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, vividly re-creating the personal and political battles leading to this monumental natural disaster, and delivering it from the lost annals of American history. 16-page insert. 3 maps.

In October 1871, a massive forest fire incinerated the town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin. It was the deadliest fire in North American history, an event so intense that its release of energy was not approximated until the advent of thermo-nuclear weapons. At least 1,200 people perished—some in bizarre and disturbing ways—and the actual number of fatalities is unknown, perhaps as many as 1,500 were lost. Since the Great Chicago Fire occurred at the same time, Peshtigo was overshadowed and almost forgotten. In 2000, veteran wild-land firefighter Peter Leschak was faced with a hot and challenging fire season, tasked with the leadership of a helitack crew—an airborne fire team expected to be the “tip of the spear” on wildfire initial attacks. During that long summer he studied Father Peter Pernon’s eyewitness account of the Pehstigo holocaust, and using his knowledge and experience as a firefighter, Leschak placed himself in Pernin’s shoes, as much as possible being transported to the firestorm of 1871. Ghosts of the Fireground tells both tales: the horrific saga of Peshtigo, and the modern battles of a wildfire helicopter crew, seamlessly intertwining the stories to enhance them both.

It's likely true that most people picking up this book have never even heard of a place called Peshtigo. This is hardly surprising: this little town on the shores of Lake Michigan is hardly a remarkable place in the modern day. Its residents number less than four thousand, and there's nothing particularly special about it at first glance.

From the author of the New York Times-bestselling I Survived series come four harrowing true stories of survival, featuring real kids in the midst of epic disasters. REAL KIDS. REAL DISASTERS.The author of the New York Times-bestselling I Survived series brings us more harrowing true stories of real kids up against terrible forces of nature. From fourteen-year-old lone survivor of the shark attacks of 1916, to nine-year-old who survived the Peshtigo fire of 1871 (which took place on the very same day in history as the Great Chicago Fire!), here are four unforgettable survivors who managed to beat the odds.Read their incredible stories:The Deadly Shark Attacks of 1916The Great Peshtigo Fire of 1871A Venomous Box Jellyfish AttackThe Eruption of Mount Tambora

*Includes pictures *Includes witness accounts of the fire *Includes a bibliography for further reading "Why is this story not known? You see endless stories about Johnstown. What happened at Peshtigo makes Johnstown look like a birdbath." - Bill Lutz, co-author of Firestorm at Peshtigo "The air burned hotter than a crematorium and the fire traveled at 90 mph. I read an account of a Civil War veteran who had been through some of the worst battles of the war. He described the sound - the roar - during the fire as 100 times greater than any artillery bombardment." - Bill Lutz In arguably the most famous fire in American history, a blaze in the southwestern section of Chicago began to burn out of control on the night of October 8, 1871. It had taken about 40 years for Chicago to grow from a small settlement of about 300 people into a thriving metropolis with a population of 300,000, but in just two days in 1871, much of that progress was burned to the ground. Due to the publicity generated by a fire that reduced most of a major American city to ash, the Peshtigo Fire of 1871 might fairly be called America's forgotten disaster. Overshadowed by the much better covered and publicized Great Chicago Fire that occurred on the same evening, the fire that started in the Wisconsin logging town of Peshtigo generated a firestorm unlike anything in American history. In addition to destroying a wide swath of land, it killed at least 1,500 people and possibly as many as 2,500, several times more than the number of casualties in Chicago. While people marveled at the fact that the Great Chicago Fire managed to jump a river, the Peshtigo fire was so intense that it was able to jump several miles across Green Bay. While wondering aloud about the way in which the Peshtigo fire has been overlooked, Bill Lutz noted, "Fires are normally very fascinating to people, but people seem resistant to Peshtigo. Maybe Peshtigo is on such a large scale that people can't comprehend it." Ironically, while Peshtigo is widely forgotten, the fire there is often cited as proof that the Great Chicago Fire was caused by natural phenomena, such as a comet or meteor shower. Those advocating such a theory think it's too coincidental that such disastrous fires were sparked in the same region on the same night, and they point to other fires across the Midwest. Of course, as with the Great Chicago Fire, contemporaries of the Peshtigo fire faulted human error and didn't necessarily link the two fires, if only because fires were a common problem in both Peshtigo and Chicago during the 19th century. The Peshtigo Fire of 1871 chronicles the story America's deadliest fire. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Peshtigo fire like never before, in no time at all.

Revealing the role of fire in the growth and maintenance of a forest, an introduction to this type of organic recycling explains how fire provides new food sources for wildlife while clearing the way for new generations of trees.