Dennis McCann: When the fires of hell burned through Wisconsin

Originally published Oct. 7, 2008

Wednesday, Oct. 8, will be remembered in Chicago – if it is indeed remembered at all in the meltdown of not just one but two professional baseball teams – as the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire, a conflagration of such a scale the whole world learned of the flames that leveled much of the city.

But we in Wisconsin know that Oct. 8 is also the anniversary of an even greater tragedy, the firestorm at little Peshtigo in Marinette County, an event that even today is considered by many the worst fire in American history. Forget the legend of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow. The disaster in Dairyland, whether the whole world knows or not, was far worse.

It’s hard to imagine today what it must have been like that autumn in 1871, when stubborn drought that began in June reduced the northern timberland by October to thousands of acres of kindling and slash awaiting only a match. Today we would have "no burn" orders in place, but oddly enough those dry conditions in 1871 actually persuaded many residents to light small fires in an effort to clear stumpy cutover land for farm use. Such debris fires were left to burn unchecked, so residents became used to the sight of red glowing on distant hillsides, apparently not understanding they were a deadly danger that would not be extinguished. When, on Oct. 8, strong, hot winds blew through there was concern at first but not yet panic – at least not until fires began to burn together and grow larger, picking up speed and force as winds increased.

By then it was too late. The fire – some later called it a tornado of fire, a holocaust of flame – raced through the north woods. Fire wheels jumped from tree top to tree top, smoke rose in mass clouds that denied vision and entire forests were claimed by flames in minutes. The sound was said to have resembled artillery fire. Houses and farm buildings disappeared, and people with them. Panic resulted, of course, and fleeing farmers and their families often found themselves trapped by balls of flame that rolled over them and burned them on the spot. Many others, people and cattle, took refuge in the river, the only place fire could not burn. By the time the fires had burned out, more than one million acres had burned across northern Wisconsin and Michigan, an estimated 1,500 people had died and even some survivors were left to view themselves as victims of the Peshtigo fire.

A few months ago I stopped at the Peshtigo Fire Museum, next to a cemetery where some victims were buried. The dead include an estimated 350 people in a mass grave, many who had been burned to completely they were never identified. (The attached photo shows a marker at the mass grave that was put up in 1981 as a remembrance.) But as sobering is it is, the mass grave does not reveal the horrors of that day as do the personal stories told on interpretive markers sprinkled through the cemetery.

Take the sad story of Terrance Kelly, his wife and four children who lived in an area called the Upper Sugar Bush. When fire came, the family was separated in the smoke and wind. Terrance had a child in his arms, his wife held another and the other two clung to each other. The next day, Terrance and his child were found dead nearly a mile from the farm, while all the others lived. The farm was gone. Terrance and Terresa, age 2 years and 2 months, are buried together.
Could the rest of the family truly be called survivors? Or could the 19-year-old Mellen man who walked his two younger siblings into the icy river to escape the hellacious flames, ducking their heads repeatedly to escape the fierce heat? Yes, he lived, but when he brought his siblings to shore both had died of hypothermia. And what to make of Charles Lemke, who attempted to take his family from the Lower Sugar Bush to his brother-in-law's house a mile away. Perhaps because he hooked the wagon so fast he needed to get down from his seat at one point and fix a hitch, just as a wave of fire washed over his family. Lemke was badly injured but managed to save himself in a small creek. But saved for what - to remember?

The stories go on, each as tragic as the last. One family grave is marked with a stone that reads simply, “All Lost In the Calamity.”

It is not an anniversary to be celebrated, but it is a hard one to forget. If you get to northeastern Wisconsin the museum, and cemetery, are highly recommended.