On this day in 1871, Minnesota was in flames. A few days later Chicago burned to the ground and America had its most destructive fire ever in Wisconsin
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wioconto/PeshtigoFullFireMapOnly.jpg
Disrupting the Borg is expensive and time consuming!
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Steven, I once saw a piece on television (won’t cite the source because he was someone of low credibility, but I don’t think it was his original idea anyway) that purported that the pattern of those fires appeared consistent with a strike from a meteor that broke into several large pieces before striking. He presented a map of the Midwest with all the affected areas highlighted. I must say it did rather look exactly like what he said. Any thoughts?
RTF
The Minnesota fire occurred several days before the Great Lakes fires. It was very dry and very windy that Autumn. Disintegrating meteors make massive explosions, like in Tunguska in 1907. There is no evidence that such a thing occurred.
Actually, he did quote some eyewitness reports about that around Chicago, in Ohio, and I think elsewhere. I’ll have to search and try to find some record of this.
I now recall the man claimed that Earth was passing through a major meteor shower at the time. So perhaps multiple meteors struck over a period of time.
http://www.cyclopaedia.fr/wiki/Port_Huron_Fire_of_1871
My boldface below.
The TV source also has a blog up where he claims that meteor fragments were found in the midst of the ruins in Port Huron, after the fire died out. But he is not citing his source.
===========================================================
Port Huron Fire of 1871
Le terme Port Huron Fire of 1871 est cité dans le Wikipedia de langue anglaise. Il est défini comme suit:
The Port Huron Fire of Sunday October 8, 1871 (one of a series of fires known collectively as the Great Fire of 1871 or the Great Michigan Fire) burned a number of cities including White Rock and Port Huron, and much of the countryside in the “Thumb” region of the U.S. state of Michigan (1.2 million acres, or 4,850 km²).On the same day, other fires burned the cities of Holland and Manistee, Michigan, as well as broad swaths of forest in various areas of the state. At least 50 people died as a result of the Port Huron Fire, and at least 200 from all the fires in the state.
The origins of the fires are unknown, but the damage was worsened by a number of factors. Uninterrupted drought plagued the Midwest into early October and winds were strong. When the wind increased and shifted direction, fire fighters were unable to control the flames any longer. Vast tracts of forest burned for a week in parts of Michigan and Wisconsin. Within hours, several Midwestern cities and towns were reduced to charcoal and ash.
That same night, the Great Chicago Fire erupted in Illinois and the Peshtigo Fire burned a large tract in Wisconsin, including the city of Peshtigo.
Windsor, Ontario met a similar fate four days later.
Much of the area burned by the Port Huron Fire was to be swept by another deadly conflagration 10 years later.
Ceci est un extrait de l’article Port Huron Fire of 1871 de l’encyclopédie libre Wikipedia. La liste des auteurs est disponible sur Wikipedia.
He also claims that “In Peshtigo, fire literally fell from the sky and quickly consumed the entire city, burning it to the ground.” Again no source is cited.
http://exploringoffthebeatenpath.com/Parks/PeshtigoFire/
Well, the Draconids meteor shower occurs about this time of year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draconids
Hey Richard! Comet strike? There is a book with that premise, “Mrs. O’Leary’s Comet”. http://www.amazon.com/Mrs-OLearys-Comet-Cosmic-Chicago/dp/0897331672/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412338533&sr=8-1&keywords=mrs.o%27leary%27s+comet
I read it some years back, and while I was not convinced by his arguments that it was a comet, he has enough eye witness reports from contemporaneous sources that I was at least convinced that something very out of the ordinary took place.
What was it? Certainly the heat and dryness were extreme — but a lot of the witnesses also reported balls of fire in the sky, unexplained patterns of damage, etc. Maybe in addition to the hot, dry weather, there was some kind of coronal ejection or electrical discharge. Heck, maybe the Earth crossed a faint but ionized comet tail and short circuited some electrical current from the Sun. I do not pretend to know, but it truly is a very interesting subject and worth researching.
Thanks for that reminder. I remember hearing about that book, but haven’t read it. Now I think I want to. RTF
My son and I were caught up by the Shultz Fire in 2010.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schultz_Fire
We were run out of Wupatki. As we were headed to the Grand Canyon, we were fortunate to get out above where they closed U.S. 89.
I saw a whiff of smoke as we drove by the Coconino peaks. At Sunset Crater, within an hour, a smoke column was overhead. At Wupatki, in less than two hours, the sky was dark, as if there were a great storm. We Easterners could not believe how quickly the fire spread. Two days later, in Cortez, CO, the smoke cloud was overhead. 200 miles away. Nothing like this ever happens in the East.
Well something sort of like it does down in Florida. http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/03/01/florida.wildfires/index.html
http://www.sjcemergencymanagement.org/wfdepth.html
Many of the Florida fires belong in a special class. Native forests are usually a mix of deciduous trees, pines and scrub, often located in near swamp conditions. Lumber companies are quite powerful in Florida politics and some decades back they managed to get special tax regulations put in place favoring some of their operations. Subsequently businessmen realized that by buying up marginal property and putting in a few canals to improve drainage, they could harvest the standing timber and replant in monoculture pine. The desired result is that they get a good tax write off on the property during the years that it takes for the pines to mature. The undesired result is that you suddenly have large swaths of land that make wonderful tinderboxes and once they start burning, they spread easily. unintended consequences…
The massive fires around Moscow a few years back were similar in nature and exacerbated due to Stalin ordering the area bogs to be drained. Of course when they burned, the loonies cried “Global Warming!”
On October 7, 1825 – a fire in Maine and New Brunswick burned 3 million acres. It was 200 times larger than the Shulz fire.
While Obama is SCREAMING about global warming causing wildfires he was also grounding aerial firefighting planes.
This was just before the last Presidential election. If the media had been doing its job this would have been plastered all over the news with scathing editorials about Obummer’s mismanagement endangering peoples lives.
MORE:
Notice how the firefighting fleet was shrunk to 1/4 of its previous size and now that it is brought up to half the previous size it is heralded as increasing the aerial firefighting planes “In the face of what is shaping up to be a catastrophic fire season..”
I think I am going to lose breakfast, the out right LIES of the US Government and the massive cover-up by the MSM are getting too much for a decent person to be able to stand.
This is from May 2014:
He has to make them (fires) worse to support his diabolical plan.
+1
That is exactly what I am thinking Phil. We have the examples of Furguson Missouri, the most recent, Zimmerman in Florida, the poor Rodeo Clown in Missouri.
http://janmorganmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/988281_652048554805870_483465210_n.jpg
I wish Holder would serve that warrant personally! 😆
Steve, my point was about how fast the fire spread. Not the size.
Must have been a nightmare when limited to the speed a horse can run and the horse’s endurance especially when coupled with a limited warning system.
Very short grass around the homestead (SHEEP!) along with sod houses and root cellars dug into the ground might be the only hope for many. You still would lose most/all of your livestock and perhaps the beams of the house.
Hey Gail! I am reminded of the rather cynical old joke from the 19th century: “Our house caught on fire, but luckily we managed to save the chimney!”
Jason, It might not be as cynical as it sounds. The chimney requires a lot more skilled labor (a mason and kiln fired bricks) to build compared to a house. Think of the Amish barn raising that happens in a day. — It takes a village and 10 hours to raise a barn.
Is there any Palmer drought data or maps as far back as 1871?
The drought, rain deficit, and weather before the great 1871 fires are documented her: Donald A. Haines & Rodney W. Sando 1969: Climatic Conditions Preceeding Historical Great Fires in the North Central Region. North Central Experimentation Forest Service; US Department of Agriculture.
Pål Jensen
Fires happen.
While driving north to Michigan on U.S. 41 last month, swung into Peshtigo to see the fire museum. There is very little from the actual time of the fire, as very little survived intact. The descriptions of the fire tornado and people seeking refuge in the river, then succumbing to hypothermia is sad. Even Green Bay wasn’t a wide enough fire break, as embers were carried east to the Door peninsula. The conditions during the Peshtigo fire were studied by Army Air Corps officers during WWII for future deployment of fire bomb raids.
The weather map of the U.S. for that date prepared from Army post observations shows a tremendous low pressure system over the middle of the country. I can’t properly interpret it, but there had to be some extreme straight line wind (derecho?) moving east.
I’ve read a number of historical markers from Minnesota and Wisconsin down into Kansas that state much of the land was virtually an impenetrable thicket before the white man cleared it.
What started all the fires was that the Whig party was forced to dissolve and they merged into the newly founded GOP… 😉
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByqMtybCIAAc_wb.jpg
How do men, with rough, manual tools, clear 200,000 square miles, in much less than 100 years time?
Oh, and nice juvenile cartoon there, skippy.
Meanwhile on this day in 2014, there was snow in Minnesota. Obvious sign of global warming. Right!
Harsh winter (2013-2014) cut Michigan wine grape crop in half. Michigan’s wine industry ranks fifth in U.S. wine production. It normally contributes more than $300 million annually to the state’s economy. link
Seems Florida is due for a shocker: Much of Florida 20 deg. Below Normal by Sunday Morning
And someone was wondering about why beef prices were up?
There is record cold in South Dakota in Sep. of 2014, three weeks earlier in the season than the record blizzard that killed about 100,000 cattle in Oct. 2013. Also the freezing temps so early in the season mean Canada and Northern USA have less animal feed.
NO GOOD…