On This Day In History

On this day in history there were a couple of devastating fires. One in Chicago and another where I live.

The Chicago fire was an economic and infrastructural catastrophe that left a massive urban population homeless but had a relatively low death toll. Conversely, the northeastern Wisconsin firestorm was a human tragedy of staggering scale, wiping out entire families, towns, and records in less than two hours.

3.3 square miles burned in Chicago while 2,400 square miles burned here.  Ignited under the same extreme drought conditions.  Chicago dominated national headlines while the Wisconsin wildfire was vastly more lethal.

300 lives were lost in Chicago while 1,200 to 2,500 people died here. The total loss of life will never be known because entire communities were obliterated.

The firestorm here, remembered as “The Tornado”, was the deadliest fire in U.S. history.