An Incredible Fact: The Deadliest Fire in U.S. History Happened the Same Day as the Great Chicago Fire but was in Wisconsin

Image from a mural at the Peshtigo Fire Museum

October 8, 1871, was an incredibly bad day for disasters in U.S. History. In Chicago the Great Chicago Fire began and over two days burned through the center of the city up to the northside. It ended at Lake Michigan and killed several hundred, rendering homeless a hundred thousand, and destroying about 1/3 of the property, by value, in the City. Although the fire did begin, as in legend, at the O'Leary's barn, the actual cause is unknown. The O'Leary's house, south of their barn, was unscathed.

In Wisconsin that same day another fire broke out in the forest north of Green Bay. (N.B. Green Bay is about 210 miles (c. 335 km) due north of Chicago -- this was a completely separate fire.) There had been a drought that summer with only a few inches of rain (this also affected Chicago), and there were very strong winds blowing out of the southwest towards the northeast (again, same in Chicago). This led to the formation of a massive wall of flame which rapidly moved northeast scorching the forest killing hundreds and 900 to 2000 (estimates vary) as it blew through the town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and surrounding villages until exhausting itself at an inlet of Lake Michigan.

Image from Michigan State University

The events of the Peshtigo fire are described at the excellent website Damn Interesting:

As the fire approached the frantic citizens, they did everything they could in their desperate attempt to escape. Many jumped into wells, hoping the water would help protect them, only to be boiled alive. As people inhaled the superheated air, they dropped dead, their lungs charred. Men, women, and children rushed for the bridge that spanned the Peshtigo River, but it had not escaped the fire's indiscriminate carnage. As the townspeople crossed the bridge, it succumbed to the abuse of the flames and collapsed in a deadly heap. Even more had rushed into the river itself, hoping the water would help protect them from the looming inferno; but the fire bombarded the people with burning wreckage. The river was soon littered with lifeless bodies.

The Peshtigo Eagle, a local newspaper, reported on the blaze:

The frenzy of despair seized on all hearts, strong men bowed like reeds before the fiery blast, women and children, like frightened spectres flitting through the awful gloom, were swept like Autumn leaves. Crowds rushed for the bridge, but the bridge, like all else, was receiving its baptism of fire. Hundreds crowded into the river, cattle plunged in with them, and being huddled together in rise general confusion of the moment, many who, had taken to the water to avoid the flames were drowned. A great many were on the blazing bridge when it fell. The debris from the burning town was hurled over and on the heads of those who were in the water, killing many and maiming others so that they gave up in despair and sank to a watery grave.

Superheated winds and tornadoes pulled the heated air upward into the sky, allowing cooler air from Canada and the Western United States to rush in to fill the vacuum. At first these counter winds fed more oxygen to the fire, until ultimately the sucking force was strong enough to cause a major change in wind direction. The fire was blown back onto itself, and it soon starved from a lack of fresh fuel. A mere ninety minutes had passed since the inferno's arrival, but the entire town of Peshtigo had been reduced to smoldering rubble.

There are similar descriptions of the fire here, here, here, and here.

No one knows with certainty how the Chicago and Peshtigo fires started. But they were not the only significant fires that sprang up on October 8, 1871 in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan . In fact, as shown at right, many fires broke out in a roughly triangular area (Peshtigo is at the top left vertex of the triangle, right; Chicago is at the bottom left vertex), with significant forest fires in and around Holland, Lansing, and Port Huron, Michigan.

There is an interesting theory, however, albeit one that deserves some skepticism because it is, frankly, incredible:  the Earth was passing through the path of a well known comet -- Biela's Comet -- at the time of the fires. Biela's Comet was first observed in 1772 and was determined in 1826 to have a period of about 6 1/2 years by Wilhelm von Biela, after whom, of course, it was named (a number of other prominent mathematicians and astronomers had attempted unsuccessfully to determine its period before Biela). In 1846 the comet was observed to have broken into several parts, which spread further apart and further split as observed in 1852 with the periods of the main parts about a month apart. Biela's comet could not be observed on its next two passes. Then a massive meteor shower occurred related to the comet in November 1872 -- about a month after the massive Chicago and Peshtigo fires. The fires are consistent with the Earth passing through -- and being hit by -- the first part of the comet on October 8 with the second part of the comet leading to the massive meteor showers in November.

There are reasons for skepticism, however. Comets, having cores of ice, would not be expected to reach the ground or start fires; they disintegrate in the atmosphere. For instance, the comet that struck the Earth causing the Tunguska event in 1908 did not cause any known fires despite causing vast destruction -- it exploded in the atmosphere. Meteorites, in fact, may be cool when they hit the surface of the Earth -- there's some dispute about this -- albeit this can be a misleading "fact." Meteorites noticeably burn as they travel through the atmosphere (not just disintegrate) and, indeed, massive fires from the K-T meteor impact likely contributed to the K-T extinction event that wiped out the large dinosaurs as well as many other species. Nonetheless, the Biela comet theory is not widely accepted by experts and, therefore, has to be treated skeptically.

The Peshtigo fire is hardly common knowledge despite the extraordinary loss of life involved. The news was dominated by the Great Chicago fire. Four to six times as many people were killed in the Peshtigo fire than in Chicago; the property damage was equivalent in value to that in Chicago. It was also much briefer than the Chicago fire: the fire storm lasted at most a few hours burning at over 2000° Fahrenheit.

More people died in the Peshtigo fire than in any other fire in U.S. history. Omitting hurricanes and floods (like the Galveston hurricane, Hurricane Katrina, and the Johnstown flood), the only greater disasters in U.S. history were the 9-11 terrorist attacks (which might well not be called a "disaster" since they were intentional) and the sinking of the riverboat S.S. Sultana in 1865. Not many know about the Sultana disaster, either -- in it three boilers exploded on the riverboat and it then sank, killing about half of its 2,500 passengers. The Sultana disaster is largely unknown because it happened  the day after John Wilkes Booth was killed and two weeks after President Lincoln was assassinated, events that dominated the news. What is important news depends on what else is important news.