William Lutz

A little slow taking off, but gets better after Chapter 8 when the fire begins. The author does a pretty good job describing a play by play of what people were doing the minute up to the fire when they realized they had to run. The stories were collected from a variety of sources, which are all listed in the “Notes” section at the back of the book for further reading if interested. There are photos of a few of the survivors and town officials who played a huge part in the recovery efforts.

This fire was part of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which was the main headlines in all the newspapers. It destroyed “America’s” town and killed around 300 people. Chicago boasted that this was the greatest fire in history; therefore, they received the majority of the news coverage.

But, the greater hell was in Peshtigo and the surrounding towns in Wisconsin where thousands of people lost their lives, survivors witnessed their loved ones, friends and neighbors burned alive in an instant. And those who made it to the river, burned and drowned in the river. Those who walked out of the river were badly burned. Of Peshtigo's 2000 residents, approximately 1,800 of them died on that day. All their stories are collected in these pages. Plus, more people died in the surrounding towns. The exact number of people who died will never be known. Charred remains were found even a few years after the fire. There was no official count ever taken.

It was always snowing ashes from the fires all around. The people were somewhat accustomed to this kind of atmosphere. In 1871, new arrivals were constantly clearing their land and burning the timber. This created a constant haze of smoke polluted air. Citizens walked around with hankies over their noses and mouths. They were constantly fighting off small fires that ignited here and there and were only a little more concerned when the snow of ash became so heavy, one couldn’t see their neighbors face. This was the norm for the lumber mill town of Peshtigo.

What they couldn’t see was the sleeping giant burning between Chicago and Michigan. When the low pressure from Galveston and the cold front from Canada merged over Lake Michigan area, it turned all the clearing fires and other surrounding raging fires into one great firestorm, much like an atomic bomb, with temperatures reaching up to at least 1800 degrees and fire tornadoes with speeds up to 100 mph.… (meer)

I had never heard of Peshtigo, Wisconsin before reading this book, and now I will never forget it or its people. A friend lent me this book as we struggled to come to grips with the 3rd huge fire in less than 2 years to ravage California; and two of those fires had burned homes of my extended family.
In 1871 the Peshtigo fire destroyed the town, farms, forests, and parts of Chicago, even burning towns into Canada. But what most people remember is only the Chicago Fire. The loss of life was immeasurable; some accounts were over 2500 men, women and children perished. The survivors not only dealt with recovering from horrific burns, they also had nothing to come back to having lost members of their families and their homes. The town of Peshtigo was built around a farming community whose main industry was lumber, and the forests were plentiful—huge trees, by lakes, rivers to move the logs. Railroads being built, telegraph lines, new roads being cleared; but the push for rapid expansion left waste like sawdust, and timber piles in a town where everything was made out of wood, even the sidewalks. This created hazards, which were helped by a long drought and extreme weather conditions that ignited a devastating firestorm. So many things contributed to the fire, but only a few saw the danger, and those few had only small pieces of the bigger picture. It is good that we have their accounts, because a lot of what we know now about fires, weather, and fire science came from those few people. Unfortunately we are still making mistakes when it comes to helping people recover after these types of disasters. The authors did a magnificent job telling this part of America’s history, it is well researched and the writing isn’t boring or cumbersome: I was pulled in and touched emotionally, so I’m strongly recommending it with a little caution because there are some graphic accounts about the people and animals in the fire. 4 stars… (meer)

I started reading this over Labor Day weekend of 2017. That seemed appropriate, because some idiot 15 year old with firecrackers had just started a fire on the beloved Eagle Creek trail in the Columbia River Gorge. Similar conditions prevailed - a long hot summer, near record drought, and the air choked with smoke all summer from fires all around the area. Reading this book with smoke in the air, and with daily updates on the Eagle Creek fire and other fires on inciweb, made the Peshtigo story even more vivid.

Having obliterated the forests of the northeastern US, after the civil war the logging industry moved into the upper Midwest in pursuit of Pinus strobus, eastern white pine. Business interests promoted the development of railroads through the region. After cutting their way through the dense forest, the railroad crews would pile the logs and slash alongside the rail line, and burn them. The summer of 1871 was exceptionally hot and dry, and people who worked in the woods had been reporting fires burning on the ground in the peat.

Many of the settlers in the area were recent immigrants, living in homesteads scattered across the area. Lacking the communication technologies and the weather forecasts we take for granted today, they had no warning of the approaching disaster. Something ignited a larger fire, and tornado strength winds devastated a wide area, killing approximately 250 people in Chicago and an estimated 2500 in the area around Peshtigo. The authors combine news stories from the time, family histories, and interesting tangents into early weather forecasting and other topics, to make this a compelling story.… (meer)