posted by Jim on May 18
The fire is the main comfort of the camp, whether in summer or winter, and is about as ample at one season as at another. It is as well for cheerfulness as for warmth and dryness.
Henry David Thoreau
Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.
Garrison Keillor
Do not dress in clothes made of leaves when going to put out a fire.
Chinese Proverb
In ashes of despaire, though burnt, shall make thee live.
Sir Philip Sidney (Sydney)
Thoughts by Jim;
I grew up in northeastern Wisconsin attending 1st a one room school named Homestead, and then from 5-7 grade, one named Harmony before moving over to the high school in the small town of Peshtigo, Ws. The High School I attended had our class ring emblems of the date 1871 and carried a fire emblem in remembrance of the Peshtigo Fire.
This forest fire occurred on the same days as the Chicago Fire and while the Chicago Fire was smaller, it was also a hub of the Midwest, and as a hub, the firestorm in the northeastern Wisconsin did not gain any publicity and notoriety as the lines of communication had been severed by the Chicago Fire.
There were many reminders about the Peshtigo Fire in my day to day living in “God’s Country” as it was nicknamed by the local folks. Huge burned out stumps stood as silent sentinels in deep forests as a reminder of the firestorm from an earlier era that laid waste to the virgin growth of timber and lives. While hiking, exploring, fishing the remote streams, collecting insects, and studying beaver dams, I saw the charred, hollowed out stumps to remind me of destruction and life in the ecosystem.
Great Peshtigo Fire
Most of the folks had parents and kin that had been caught up in the event and aftermath of the fire. One of our neighbors would tell me stories of seeing the glow on the horizon and watching fireballs landing ahead of the raging fire. Since this was the fall of the year, many fields had been harvested and one of the few places that families could retreat to for protection as the woods, bogs, and buildings erupted into an inferno.
People seeking fields
Many people died in this fire and stories started emerging of families being spared, while neighbors were consumed by the flames, heat, or suffocation. Out of this disaster, stories grew of folks beating the odds, surviving hardships unimaginable, communities bonding and working together to rebuild. Just like the legendary Phoenix rising from the ashes, the indomitable spirit of these folks pulled together to build a new town, new farms, and a sense of civic pride of “can do” and anything is possible. They built an industry in the town of Peshtigo and this spirit held together thru the Great Depression again. While other communities and areas were in a depression with no work, the paper mill kept churning and refused to shut down, but chose rather to keep the folks working so they could provide food for the families.
This is the spirit of the area I grew up with that merged into my character and some of my core strengths. I do not give up easily, even against seemingly insurmountable odds. I like one of Mary Manin Morrissey thoughts from the book “Field of Dreams.” Here she talks about settings our sights on lofty dreams as “not probable and yet possible.” One of my many traits is a “can do” attitude and then I find a way of aligning my goals and dreams into my reality. I have seen seemingly “bad” events lead to many blessings, gifts, and opportunities for folks that choose instead to make the best of what they have and help others in need.
Epilogue:
Firestorms of 1871*
“The woods and heavens were all on fire,” the smoke blocked the sun, and the rising moon turned red. For witnesses of the worst fire in American history, it was a sure sign of the apocalypse. On October 8, 1871, a fire with hurricane force winds consumed more than 1,000,000 acres of farms, forests, sawmills, and small towns of Wisconsin and upper Michigan. In its path of destruction an estimated 1,500 to 2,500 people lost their lives. Since whole towns were wiped out, all public records were lost. In Peshtigo, there is a mass grave of over 400 bodies unidentified, as no one survived to identify the victims.
The Peshtigo fire, as it was dubbed, represents the greatest tragedy of its kind in North America. The conflagration occurred the same day as the great Chicago fire and has relegated to a lesser place in annals of north America disasters. Yet, the natural forces unleashed that day would for evermore be known as a “firestorm.”
Only a trace of precipitation fell on the area surrounding the Green Bay of Wisconsin between July and October. Drought in the vast timberland dried up the ponds, bogs, and creeks causing normal swampy areas to be dry beds of clay. The abnormally dry forest provided some benefits for the settlers. The opportunity to clear more land and step up the lumber harvest did not go to waste. With the lumbering practices of the time wasting 1/4 of the tree during its harvest, large piles of sawdust and waste, called slash, built up through the forest. Small debris fires set by loggers and settlers burned unchecked. These fires were commonplace to the people living and working in the towns and saw mills. One resident recalled that fall that “the red on the distant hillsides was created by flames rather than the glow of frosted oaks.” The fires combined with the tinderbox conditions of the forest laid a foundation for disaster.
The night of October 8 seemed like everyone previous with the glow of fires in the distance and black smoke in the air. Hot blasts of wind blew through time to time causing minor concern. A wind storm came that evening providing the last element needed for a huge fire. Warmer temperatures fueled the patch fires cutting the telegraph wires and isolating towns from each other. As the fires picked up they began to rage and burn together, all while moving rapidly. The heat of the blaze allowed it to move through some partially burned areas. Isolation of the farms and the speed of the fire caught many inhabitants unprepared.
A sound resembling a thousand stampeding cows or the “heavy discharge of artillery” preceded the horrors that followed. The thick smoke made it difficult to see even a few feet ahead. Out of the darkness leapt large firewhirls that twisted off tree tops while they burst into flame. Flames shot into the sky like lightning as the wind showered the landscape with fire brands, cinders and hot sand. One man recalled how “great volumes of fire would rise up, fifty feet from the top of the trees, leap over thirty acres of clearing and, in an instant, flame up in the forests beyond.” As the fire continued it grew exponentially. Exploding marsh gases hovered over the ground like black balloons until they exploded above the ground throwing fire like shrapnel. Houses and people literally burst into flame. “The fire arrived . . . not as a wave or a surge of flame but as though [it] suddenly dropped from the sky.”
Describing the Peshtigo holocaust as a “tornado of fire” is not an exaggeration. Firewhirls, small fire tornados, traveled ahead of the blaze at 6 miles per/hour. Surface winds only blew 15 40 miles/hour but the firestorm fed itself creating internal winds of up to 80 miles/hour. The fire became a great convection feeding itself and drawing in oxygen and fuel. Hurricane force winds ripped the roofs of houses, blew over barns, uprooted trees, and tossed a 1,000 lb. wagon like it was a tumbleweed. A family fleeing from the flames found themselves picked up and tossed about by the wind. Papers and wood caught in the updraft traveled as far north as Canada. “The peculiar physics of mass fire had multiplied its fury into a maelstrom of energy equivalent to the chain reaction of a thermonuclear bomb. There was no defense for the populace but flight.”
Panic quickly settled on the fleeing settlers. With the flames moving so rapidly, people found themselves surrounded with no apparent escape. As families fled amid a barrage of falling embers and hot ash their clothes and hair would catch on fire. The heat burned many, causing large blisters on their backs arms and faces. Attempting to find refuge, families fled into sellers where they died from asphyxiation. Others seeking safety jumped into wells and shallow marshes where they were boiled alive. In Peshtigo terrified cattle stampeded over a group laying in a stream. Others losing all sense of reason tried to escape by running into large buildings, which burst into flame and collapsed. Settlers surrounded by flames in the forest laid down face first in the middle of clearings. For some it saved their lives. The majority of the survivors spent the night in rivers, ponds and the Green Bay. Those in the water could only have their heads above the water for a few seconds due to the intense heat, which caused debris to burn on the surface. For the victims consumed by fire on land, most were burned beyond recognition some even being reduced to ashes.
The Peshtigo fire pressed a heavy mark on the lives of the victims in 1871. In Peshtigo, all that stands as a reminder to the disaster is a small memorial. Although the fire is not well known, it is a disaster in every description. The destructive force of the Peshtigo fire ended hundreds of human lives and destroyed an ecosystem. Twenty six years after the fire the area remained void of any valuable forest growth.
*Firestorms written by unknown Boise State University Student
