The Backstory: Smokey Skies: The Deadliest Wildfire in U.S. History

Again this summer . . we’ve been dealing with smokey skies in North America mostly from Canadian wildfires. But the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history happened in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, in 1871. It killed about 2500 people. But nobody gave it the attention it deserved either in fighting it or reporting on it, because it happened the same day as the Great Chicago Fire. These are personal stories from people who lived through this inferno.

Feel free to DM me if you have a story you’d like me to cover . . on Facebook it’s Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, there's probably no better illustration of the power of
wind in our atmosphere than when we see smoke filled
skies from wildfires burning thousands of miles away, as we
have been again this summer. Right parts of the northern
US are being blanketed by smoke from wildfires burning all
across Canada as well as in Minnesota. But imagine not

(00:21):
having access to information that warns you in advance that
fire is racing toward you and from which direction. I'm
Patty Steele the Peshdigo Fire of eighteen seventy one, the
deadliest wildfire in US history. That's next on the backstory.

(00:41):
We're back with the backstory. This summer, smoky skies have
been covering parts of the northern US because of rampant
wildfires across Canada and some far northern states, especially Minnesota.
As I sit here outside of New York, I'm looking
out at a peachy glow, and I can smell the
sun smoke even inside the house and on thousands of

(01:02):
miles away. So it got me to thinking about what
it would be like to face a massive fire with
no warning and almost no help. The Peshtigo Fire in
Wisconsin back in eighteen seventy one was the deadliest wildfire
in US history. It decimated one and a half million
acres and killed as many as twenty five hundred people.

(01:25):
So why have most of us never heard of it?
Or maybe heard of it? Referenced in Season one of
The guilded Age as Jack visits the grave of his
mother killed in the disaster, but otherwise the story has
disappeared into history. Well. Weirdly, the Peshtigo Fire broke out
not only on the same day, but at almost the

(01:45):
same hour as the legendary Great Chicago Fire. That coincidence
led to some claims that both fires had started due
to a massive comet hitting the Midwest, although to this
day there's no proof of that scenario. Of course, the
Great Chicago Fire got all the press over the following
weeks and months because it was a huge city on

(02:06):
the edge of the Western frontier, But the death toll
in Chicago was less than twenty percent of the toll
in the Peshtigo fire. In fact, resources that might have
gone to help the folks in Wisconsin were actually diverted
south to Chicago. So imagine it's an unusually warm October day,
work is going on clearing land around the town for

(02:28):
building and railroad development. The workers are using a common
land management tactic called slash and burn, cutting through forests
and burning a lot of the felled logs that they're
not going to use now. The problem is it's been
a hot fall with no rain amidst an ongoing drought.
Out of nowhere, the wind picks up a huge amount

(02:50):
of speed as a cold tront moves in from the north.
Suddenly there's fire everywhere. Experts say a firestorm erupted. In
a firestorm, superheated flames of at least two thousand degrees
advance on winds of one hundred ten miles per hour
or stronger. The diameter of a firestorm can range from

(03:11):
one thousand to ten thousand feet. They say when a
firestorm erupts in a forest, it literally blows up. They
call it nature's nuclear explosion. Later, when interviewed about what
they saw, survivors recalled a roaring fire tornado, swirling blue
hot flames, dropping balls of fire from the sky, forcing

(03:34):
desperate families into wells, into the river, or even spreading
wet quilts over themselves in a last ditch effort. Some
folks drowned in the river or in ponds, while others
died from hypothermia in the frigid water. One witness claims
she saw a man stab all of his children to
death to save them from the pain of burning. But
there were stories of survival. Fourteen year old orphan Joseph

(03:58):
Lacrosse jumped into a well with a little baby girl
named Florence, protecting her from the flames. The next day,
he found a burned cow and hand melked it to
feed the baby. Grace Coon survived the inferno by jumping
into a small pond. She said she constantly dipped her
shawl into the water and draped it over herself to

(04:18):
keep the searing heat at bay, although she heartbreakingly lost
her husband and her two sons. When it was over,
as much as one and a half million acres had burned,
leveling Peshtigo as well as sixteen other towns. At least
half the population had been killed, along with fifteen hundred
others in surrounding areas. Most of the town's industries, including

(04:41):
a big wooden ware factory, were gone. Ironically, most of
the businesses had been owned by a Chicago tycoon who
lost most of his other businesses the same day in
the Great Chicago Fire two hundred and fifty miles to
the south. Because so much of the nation's aid was
sent to help the vicarvictims of the Great Chicago Fire,

(05:02):
folks who survived in Peshtigo spent the winter living in
thin tents and hand built shacks. They had to rely
on themselves to rebuild the town. A few eerie sidebars here.
Historians say the American and British militaries actually studied the
fire during World War II to learn how to recreate

(05:22):
firestorms during bombing campaigns against cities in Germany and Japan.
And at the end of the day, you would think
a disaster of that magnitude might change how the business
of logging was done. No such luck. Researchers say the
event prompted almost no change to the practices of the
lumber industry or even the way settlers lived their lives

(05:44):
in forests. They say, in the following decades, the rate
of industrial logging using the same tactics actually increased and
the amount of forest fires increased throughout the country, with
Wisconsin itself experiencing major fires in eighteen eighty eighteen ninety one,
eighteen ninety four, eighteen ninety seven, nineteen oh eight, nineteen ten,

(06:05):
nineteen twenty three, nineteen thirty one, and nineteen thirty six,
with about half a million acres being burned up each year.
As we peek out at those orange skies, we can
at least be grateful that despite five point nine million
acres burning up in Canada now, only four or five
people have lost their lives. Got to give thanks for

(06:29):
communications and the heroic work of our first responders. I
hope you're enjoying The Backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave
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On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele.

(06:54):
I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia,
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Our producer is Mike Paeseglia. Our writer is Jake Kushner.
New episodes are out every Tuesday and Friday, and feel
free to reach out to me with comments and story
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(07:16):
at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with
Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't know you
needed to know.