Devastation and Miracles During the Great Peshtigo Fire

An illustration of the Peshtigo Fire, showing people seeking refuge in the Peshtigo River, 1871. Harper's Weekly, 1871 Page 1037. The Peshtigo Fire Museum. Public Domain

On the same day as the infamous Great Chicago Fire of 1871, another conflagration ripped through Wisconsin and became known as the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history. Despite the destruction, survivors told tales of people and buildings miraculously surviving. In the end, the disaster served as an basis to prevent destructive blazes in the future.

The region surrounding Peshtigo, Wisconsin, filled with forests centuries old, was suffering an extreme drought. During the several hot months leading up to October 1871, “Eleven weeks had passed without rain except for a shower so light on September 5 that the rain evaporated as quickly as it fell,” wrote Denise Gess and William Lutz in “Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, Its People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History.” “The forest ‘panted,’ one survivor said later.

Careless practices by farmers, lumberjacks, and railroad workers left several piles of dry fuel ready to burn. Starting in late September, various forest fires had ignited outside Peshtigo and had been burning for two weeks. But then on Oct. 8, a vicious fall front came in and caused winds to shift and fuel the small blazes.

The Peshtigo Fire Museum in Peshtigo, Wis. Public Domain

Firestorm

The winds swept up the small fires and morphed them into a 3-mile-wide, 1,000-foot tall firestorm that spun counterclockwise like a tornado. The fire tornado hit Peshtigo. Multiple fires surged through 16 towns, burned on both sides of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and destroyed around 1.2 million acres of forest. Although an official death count was never made, it’s believed that nearly 2,500 people perished.

The memorial for the victims of the Peshtigo Fire at the Peshtigo Fire Cemetery adjacent to the Peshtigo Fire Museum in Peshtigo, Wis. Public Domain

Some people miraculously survived the fiery holocaust. Many immersed themselves in local rivers, although they struggled to avoid logs burning in the river. Two young children were found alive the next day near their home sleeping in each other’s arms; their house, barn, and all of the other outbuildings around them had burned to the ground.

Another story told the tale of Adele Brise, who prayed with others at her Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help while flames surrounded the shrine’s six-acre property. The flames came up and scorched the paint on the shrine’s picket fence, but didn’t burn through the wooden fence around the property or the shrine.

Lesson Learned

After the fire, the federal government adopted better forest management practices. This led to the 1876 creation of the office of Special Agent in the Department of Agriculture to monitor the forest conditions in the country. In 1881, the office became the Division of Forestry, which laid the foundation for the current U.S. Forest Service.

The Peshtigo fire is still studied by experts to improve land and forest management. In the aftermath of the blaze, the nation discovered just how much destruction a wildfire could cause. Before the tragedy, it was common practice for loggers to burn slash (wood debris), without considering hot dry weather conditions. Slash is now burned more responsibly.

Land use practices changed with more attention paid to the wood debris when clearing land for farming or timber operations. Today, meteorologists often use weather patterns to help control planned burns and wildfires.

The Peshtigo wildfire of 1871 brought devastation to the Upper Midwest, but laid the groundwork for using nature’s gifts more intelligently.

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