make wooden crates, window sashes
and furniture.
From 1870 to 1871, the Midwest was
engulfed in drought. Peshtigo and the
surrounding area, which normally gets a
meter or two of snow, got almost none
that winter. The spring and summer also
brought lighter than normal precipita-
tion. Historical records mark the date
of the last soaking rain before the fire
as July 8, leaving the slash to bake in the
dry air for another three months through
summer and early fall.
In early October, a cyclonic weather
front formed over the Great Plains, cre-
ating westerly winds that headed toward
Peshtigo. When the storm hit the North-
woods on Oct. 8, a huge temperature
difference created strong winds, kicking
up coals and fanning the smaller fires,
which merged into one enormous fire. A
wall of flame nearly 5 kilometers wide and
almost a kilometer high roared through
the town and quickly spread, according
to survivor accounts.
Based on the vitrification of sand, the
fire was estimated to have reached more
than 1,000 degrees Celsius. It burned so
intensely that it created its own weather
system, with winds whipping the fire into
a tornado-like column of fire and cinders.
Authors Gess and Lutz reported that winds
rushed through the town at more than
160 kilometers per hour. Escape routes
were limited; outrunning the fire was
impossible. Many survivors used the same
phrase to describe the speed of the flames:
“faster than it takes to write these words.”
Some fled to the Peshtigo River, but the
cold water created new problems for the
residents. Peter Leschak, author of “Ghosts
of the Fireground” and a firefighter, said
in a 2002 interview with MPR that air
temperatures were likely between 260
and 370 degrees Celsius — hot enough to
combust hair. People taking refuge in the
river had to repeatedly hold their breath
and dunk themselves into the cold water,
or splash water over their exposed heads.
Some who survived the fire died from
hypothermia in the river.
The wildfire eventually was quenched
by decreased winds and rain the next day.
The cold front that brought the strong
winds also dropped the temperature, and
those who had survived the fire — it is
not known how many — were left in
danger of succumbing to the elements.
All the buildings in Peshtigo had burned
to the ground, leaving a flat, smoldering
expanse where the town previously stood.
The land was burnt deep and the water
was fouled — both from the fire and the
dead bodies in rivers and wells.8LI&JXIVQEXL
After the fire, patches of sand were
melted into glass, railroad cars had been
tossed off their tracks, and holes dot-
ted the landscape where burned roots
turned to ash. The fire destroyed lines
of communication out of Peshtigo. The
nearest telegraph was in the city of Green
Bay, about 70 kilometers to the south
at the head of the bay, so the surviving
townspeople dispatched a boat to thecity to get word to Madison, the state’s
capital. As news of the fire was reported
in national and international press, dona-
tions of tools, bedding, clothing and food
poured in from around the world.
No official death toll was determined
after the fire. With so many dead and
the weekly influx of newcomers, exact
numbers were difficult to determine. In
1873, Col. J. H. Leavenworth sent a report
to the state government titled “The Dead
in the Burned District,” detailing those
who were killed in the Peshtigo fire. He
compiled a list of those known to have
perished and documented what he saw:
“Whole neighborhoods having been
swept away without any warning, or leav-
ing any trace, or record to tell the tale ... The
list [of the dead] can be depended upon as
far as it goes, but it is well known that great
numbers of people were burned, particu-
larly in the village of Peshtigo, whose names
have never been ascertained, and proba-
bly never will be, as many of these were
transient persons at work in the extensive
manufactories, and all fled before the horri-
ble tempest of fire, many of them caught in
its terrible embrace with no record of their
fate except their charred and blackened
bones ... for the very sands in the street
were vitrified, and metals were melted in
localities that seem impossible.”8LIJVSRXTEKISJXLI2EHMWSR)EMP])IQ
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