MY FIRE IS BIGGER THAN YOUR FIRE! by Marisa Masterson

Fire, elemental and necessary. And agressive and deadly. 

from the Peshtigo Fire Museum

As a girl in Wisconsin, I learned about that horrible night in October, 1871. An intense blaze raced through the North Woods with deadly consequences. In fact, it is considered the deadliest wildfire in recorded history.

It began with the winds. That night they gusted over 100 miles per hour. Those gusts found a fire purposely set to clear land, the easiest way to get rid of brush. Sadly, the extended dry season had turned the area around the brush into fodder for the fire.

I include glimpses of that night in my fictional book Compromised:

As she leaned her head back, she again sighed. The man across from her arched his brow. To ignore him, she shut her eyes. That allowed memories to flood her mind.

They suffered through a dry summer. The drought continued into the fall. Around Peshtigo, fields and forests crackled from it.

Someone had decided to burn brush. It was the best, easiest way to clear the land. Sudden winds grabbed at the fire and used it as a deadly weapon. The winds hurled it at her town. The blaze murdered more than two thousand people as gusts drove it.

The late fall cold sent shivers through her, bringing her out of the memory. She tugged the woolen cloak closer around her shoulders and fingered the ends of her scarf. Across from her, a throat cleared.

She glanced up to meet the other passenger’s sympathetic gaze. He offered a gray army blanket. “You want this, miss. I’d gladly give it up if you need it.”

Sympathy. The expression in his eyes repelled her. Too often, she glimpsed that look instead of true understanding from people. Her lips tightened, and she struggled to force words past them.

As he offered her the blanket, she shook her head. Purposefully, she turned her face away from him. After weeks of sympathy, Gracie wanted to scream if the merest hint of the emotion flashed in her direction.

No kind words or caring gesture softened her situation. Mother. Father. They were dead, and no words could make their passing tolerable.

Again, the cold sent tremors through her body. An icy wind blew and reminded her of the terrible night only one month earlier. It had created an almost unbelievable contrast for the desperate people trying to escape the fire. Icy gusts had chilled them while the hot fire raged ever closer to the river.

And there, she had found questionable safety, standing in the Peshtigo River. At the warning cry, “Fire! Fire!” she had grabbed for her cloak and scarf. She stood, shivering in the cold water as the wool grew heavy with it. Her mother, clothed only in her nightgown and wrapper, had held tightly to Gracie’s hand while they watched Father run into the blaze.

Mother had pleaded, “Stay with us. Come into the water!”

He turned to shake his head. No words. No goodbye. Without words of comfort or explanation, her father raced toward the blaze, risking his life to save others. 

Burning of Peshtigo, Rust Belt Magazine

The enormity of the disaster, I fear, was understated in my novel. The blaze gobbled up the forest. It consumed small communities and the largest town in the area--Peshtigo. When it was over, one million (plus more) acres had been destroyed. Worse, 2,500 people died--five times the number killed in the Great Chicago Fire.

Why don't you know about this disaster? The Great Chicago Fire, that's why.

Chicago in Flames, Currier & Ives

 

That city's fire happened at the same time as the Peshtigo Fire. A city burning grabbed the headlines away from the North Woods. In the end though, five times more deaths happened in Northern Wisconsin than in Chicago.

My heroine resembles how I imagine many were after the fire. She is a person in shock and struggling to go on with life. Little wonder that we discover, as the story progresses, that she fears the fireplace.

Find out more in Compromised. Click here to find the book.

Fire In the City by Zina Abbott

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While deciding on my setting for my most recent book, I chose for my heroine to come from one of my favorite cities of origin—Chicago, Illinois. It was a large progressive city, it had newspapers which carried matrimonial advertisements, and it had a big fire in 1871 that destroyed a lot of the city and disrupted many lives, causing hardships for many.

Not long after I started writing, on January 7, 2025, a wind event called the Santa Ana winds, which is peculiar to Southern California, began. Instead of the usual off-shore flow of humid air coming inland from the Pacific Ocean, high pressure systems in the Great Basin and desert regions to the east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains caused hot, dry winds to blow toward the west. They skirt the bottom of that mountain range, which bends west to form the southern border of the San Joaquin Valley, which is where I live. Coupled with an extremely dry winter, the Southern California county of Los Angeles quickly found itself dealing with a series of large, fast-moving fires.

Satellite image showing smoke from the fires

Continuing west, those winds flow through passes in the coastal mountains and foothills—which serve as tunnels— toward the coast. The winds on January seventh reached 100 miles per hour in places.

Those fires, coupled with extra dry air, picked up sparks which quickly exploded into large conflagrations. Although the heart of Los Angeles itself seems to be an island not affected by those winds as strongly, it is surrounded on both sides by terrain that carry these winds toward the coast. 

The first large fire, the Pacific Palisades fire, was only one of five large fires and numerous small fires that threatened the Los Angeles county area alone.

The Pacific Palisades fire—which spread north into Malibu—was quickly joined by the Eaton, Hurst, Kenneth, and Lidia fires. 

As of today, over 5,000 firefighters from all over the Western states and Mexico, along with their fire engines and water tenders, are working to put out those fires. I know many cities in the San Joaquin Valley, including some from the country where I live, have joined the fire suppression effort. Some progress has been made. Between the high winds, some at speeds that prevent flying water tankers from leaving the ground, and steep, brush-laden terrain, it has been a challenging battle. 

The fires threatened Mount Wilson, the location of the Wilson Astronomical Observatory. Having lived in that area, I was worried about the observatory. 

The biggest concern for emergency personnel was that this mountain is also the location of a multitude of towers that support the antennas and repeaters necessary for radio transmission and other forms of communication that first responders, radios, and television stations rely upon. The firefighters made a point to keep the flames from the nearby Eaton fire away from that mountain.

To see a photograph of Mount Wilson that shows the towers, please CLICK HERE. If you scroll down through the article, you will see a nice photograph of the observatory, which was not damaged by the fire. 

Although many fires have been put out, the Eaton fire is only 68 percent contained. 

The Pacific Palisades fire is still going ten days after it began. It started in the eastern foothills and burned a wide path of destruction all the way down to the beach. Although I do not have a photograph from a public domain site, many people fleeing the fire, because of traffic jams on Highway One, which follows the coastline, were forced to abandon their transportation to flee on foot. Our local television station showed video clips of bulldozers pushing abandoned vehicles off the road so that firefighting trucks could get through. 

As of today, the Pacific Palisades fire is only 31 percent contained. To view a recent photo of the destruction, including the burned buildings within a matter of feet from the Pacific Ocean, please CLICK HERE. (Ignore the political stuff. Concentrate on the pictures.)

All told, the fires in Los Angeles and neighboring Ventura counties have burned 14,000 acres, destroyed over 12,400 structures, resulted in 205,000 people being evacuated from their homes, and—at last count—claimed twenty-seven lives. Because so many areas are still too dangerous to be searched, the death toll is expected to rise. 

Although much of the fire took place in sparsely populated foothills, several fires leveled blocks and blocks of suburban neighborhoods and business districts. Between all of the fires, over sixty-three square miles of ground have been burned—larger than the areas of San Francisco, Las Vegas, and several large cities. 

The severity of the Santa Ana winds have diminished and increased. A day or two after the initial 98-100 mph wind speeds, firefighters were expected to be happy the next day brought only 50 mph wind speeds. The winds have let up and returned several times, with one short reprieve, which brought cooler air and humidity in off the ocean. Unfortunately, those Santa Ana winds are still in the forecast.

Currier & Ives postcard depicting Great Chicago Fire

Back to the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. Many of us have heard about Mrs. O’Leary’s cow that kicked over a lantern, which is reputed to have been the cause of that fire. Like many elements of the fires that Southern California experienced these past ten days, it took place in a city setting—closely placed buildings dense with human and animal population. 

 

It was all many could do to flee the fire. Many started out driving a wagon. Because of the streets being so packed with other people also trying to evacuate the area, they were forced to abandon their vehicles and the majority of possessions inside and proceed on foot the best they could. 

 Many fled to Lake Michigan.

 

 This fire took place on October 8th through the 10th, 1871. The fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly 3.3 square miles of the city including over 17,000 structures. More than 100,000 residents were left homeless. The fire began in a neighborhood southwest of the city center. A long period of hot, dry, windy conditions, and the wooden construction prevalent in the city, led to the conflagration spreading quickly. 

 

The fire leapt the south branch of the Chicago River and destroyed much of central Chicago and then crossed the main stem of the river, consuming the Near North Side.

The photo I used for this post’s header was actually of firefighters working on a structure in the Pacific Palisades fire. However, a look at some of the photos of burned structures taken after the Chicago fire was finally over shows some interesting similarities.

A Wikipedia article featuring the details of the 2025 wildfires in Southern California, which, at this point in time, I suspect is updated frequently, may be found by CLICKING HERE.

My next book, which uses the Great Chicago Fire as one of its plot elements, is The Bride Who Invades Saloons. This book is currently on pre-order. To find the book description and pre-order link, please CLICK HERE

 

ROBBING THE GREAT CHICAGO FIRE by Marisa Masterson

The building was grand. Opened in 1868, it towered at six stories on Chicago's State Street. Locals nicknamed it the Marble Place because the front was covered completely in marble. For all its grandeur on that October day in 1871, the Field, Leiter & Company store was in trouble. 

Ultimately, the company would become known as Marshall Field's. Today it no longer exists since Macy's bought out the chain fifteen years ago. But, in the nineteenth century, it was the premier department store in Chicago.

That day in October, 1871, company officials learned of a terrible blaze headed their way, literally devouring the city. One of the partners, Leiter, owned a house out of the fire's path, and he was determined to save the costly inventory by moving it to his home. 

How could he do it in time? That involved building a fire in the store.

One of the wonderful things about this tall store was the elevators. An employee raced to the basement and broke up wooden crates to built a fire in the huge boiler. As soon as the elevators were working, employees hustled out goods as well as the company's records to waiting horse-drawn wagons.

They worked all night--loyal employees who wanted to save the company so they'd have a job after the fire destroyed the city. At the moment the last employee exited the lovely marble-faced store, flames shot out each window. The Great Chicago Fire had reached the Marble Palace and consumed it.

The fire totally destroyed the store. Those employees who'd worked tirelessly had saved so much inventory that it was able to repoen in few weeks in a temporary location. Of course, the company rebuilt and went on to be a favorite store in the city for decades.

The Marble Palace plays an early role in my newest novel. Still being written, the novel features a teacher headed west to be both wife and educator. She stops in Chicago and visits this store. What she leaves with is unbelievable! You'll have to wait a while to find out more...

Check out www.marisamasterson.com for information on all of my latest books.