If you ever go to Chicago, you will hear about it, endlessly. The tale of this inferno has passed into lore. In Chicago, a blaze broke out – with blame traditionally pinned to an Irish immigrant woman and her cow – that destroyed over three square miles of the city and killed around three-hundred people. On October 8, 1871, two of the deadliest fires in American history took place at almost the exact same time. ĝenise Gess and William Lutz, Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, its People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History When these angry flames hit a target, they created more wind, while behind them the whirling advancing fire – already a behemoth churning mountain – swept these multiple vortices of wind and flame into is greedy arms, in turn gaining even more heat and strength…” These long darts of flame projected from the crown fire are capable of leaping to trees hundreds of yards ahead of the advancing fire. The gorging fire, hungry for oxygen and determined to maintain its life, belched flamethrowers or firebrands in advance of itself. It was creating huge convection updrafts, which in turn intensified the fire’s wind. At this point the fire was reaching maximum temperatures. The fires throughout Oconto County had ‘crowned’ in the trees and when a fire crowns in the forest even trained firefighters get out of its way. “Within five minutes no one in Peshtigo could distinguish the main fire from the tornado or the main fire from the secondary fires or the firebrands.
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