Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, Its People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History

People need to know about the worst natural disaster and this books helps educate that.

Enjoyed reading this very much. Easy to understand, story told through the lens of the people that were involved.

On October 8, 1871, the same day of the famous Chicago fire, a tornado was heading toward the lumber-mill town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, 262 miles north of Chicago, near the coast of Lake Michigan. All summer, forest fires had been burning in the area out of control. As the tornado approached the fires, it drew upon them for energy, becoming a new engine of massive destruction five miles wide.Nothng like it had been seen since the Great Fire of London in 1666. Nothing like it would be seen again until the saturation bombing of German cities by the allies in the Second World War.People later described the approach of the fire tornado as that of a roaring earthquake that shook the ground. The 100-mile-per-hour winds tore great pines out by the roots, leaving craters 70 feet across. They tossed a locomotive like a twig. It ignited clouds of hydrogen that had been created by the forest fires and threw them to ground in great fireballs.The heat of the tornado reached 2,000 degrees, hotter than an atomic blast. It melted railroad lines and the wheels of railroad cars and whipped sand into melted glass. It exploded buildings and threw them into the air. It sucked the water from the earth, leaving all the wells dry.Survivors recalled seeing humans, horses, and other animals explode in flame. The tornado flattened 2,400 square miles of forest and killed 2,200 people. Most of those who survived hid in the water under the banks of rivers and streams.Prominent in the story is the experience of the local priest, Fr. Pernin, At the last minute, he decided to rescue the Blessed Sacrament and the chalice. He dropped his key and could not find it, so he picked up the wooden tabernacle and took it outside and put it on the wagon. He raced the horse and wagon to the river as everything around them exploded in fire. He and his horse survived though both were badly burned. The next morning, he realized that all the survivors had lost relatives and everything they owned.The survivors, most of them blind and burnt, wandered the blistering and smoldering landscape looking for the bodies of relatives and neighbors who had not been pulverized and blown away.Only slowly did news of what happened at Pestigo reach the rest of the world. All the attention had been focused on the Chicago fire, where 300 had died. Most of the survivors who did not die of infections and disease faced a lifetime of mental withdrawal and trauma syndrome. Few of them could speak of what they had seen.

While overshadowed by the great Chicago fire which took place on the same day, October 8, 1871, the firestorm that obliterated Peshtigo, Wisconsin was a tragedy of unprecedented proportion - one of those events evoking the reaction "why didn't I know about this"? Aside from the horror of the fire, which literally cannot be described in words (how can one adequately describe the impact of a 1,000 foot-high wall of fire moving at speeds exceeding 100 miles-per-hour), "Firestorm at Peshtigo" offers fascinating insight to life in the north-central timber forests of the mid-nineteenth century, as well as the infant science of meteorology and the physics of a true firestorm. Notwithstanding, the books primary appeal lies in the almost ghoulish detail in which the incomprehensible devastation of the firestorm is drawn. While the final loss of life will never be known, 2,200 deaths is an accepted estimate in a fire that raged over 2,400 square miles - a conflagration so intense that even the soil burned. Given the primitive state of medicine of the day, the limited communications and access to the relatively remote Green Bay area, and the total destruction of the land and infrastructure, one wonders if the survivors of the fire, scarred both physically and mentally by the fire and loss of family and community, weren't the true victims.In short, a brutally fascinating nugget of American history, proving again that fact is indeed stranger, and in this case, more lurid, than fiction.

A thorough and engaging history of the events leading up to the the fire itself. I was strongly reminded of the burning of California's forests - same carelessness and lack of "forest sweeping." Same overwhelming and unnecessary destruction and loss of life. I also appreciated the attention to the newly developing science of weather, including the place of Increase Lapham, a Wisconsin hero of natural science. The Children's Blizzard also discussed the development of the weather department in the Chicago and westerly areas which synchronized with an unusual and destructive blizzard.

On time as advertised

I bought this book, as I had never read about this disaster. The authors made it very interesting and easy to read. The book included a couple interesting maps for reference, something I always look for.The one message I got from this book is how far we have advanced in managing disasters since that time. The book includes discussion of common disaster elements then that are common in disasters today.The lack of early warning; lack of communication when the telegraph lines were burned, (no news is good news); the emergence of victims to help others, the convergence of the outside world when it became apparent the extent of the disaster are addressed in this book.This book covers continuity of operations/succession issues, logistics and medical aid for the thousands of walking wounded. Lastly, the event was studied by the US military to perfect incendiary attacks on populations. Hadn't heard that either but the narrative of the "firestorm" was very uncomfortable to read. Great book and I would make it mandatory reading for disaster managers.

Enlightening. After discovering the fire tornado event that took place at Peshtigo in 1871 from the audible audiobook Storm Kings by Lee Sandlin I definitely wanted to find out more.As I discovered more I learned that it was actually the deadliest firestorm in North American history with an unfortunate death toll of 2500 people. But sadly it was overshadowed by the Chicago fire that occurred at the same time and so as been largely forgotten.Large Firewhirls and an actual high wind tornado that went through Peshtigo during the firestorm certainly not helping matters.Such events were considered unbelievable until a very similar event occurred nearly 50 years later in Japan.