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by Captivating History (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
It’s likely true that most people picking up this book have never even heard of a place called Peshtigo. This is hardly surprising: this little town on the shores of Lake Michigan is hardly a remarkable place in the modern day. Its residents number less than four thousand, and there’s nothing particularly special about it at first glance.
But one does have to look twice at its motto. “A city rebuilt from the ashes.” Peshtigo may be just another small Wisconsin town today, but a hundred and fifty years ago, it really was nothing but ashes. This town was one of the hardest hit in the deadliest wildfire event in American history—and no, I’m not talking about the Great Chicago Fire, even though it also occurred on the very same night. The Great Peshtigo Fire of 1871 claimed four times as many lives as the fire in Chicago, and yet this cruel twist of fate has left it almost unheard-of, while the (untrue) tale of Catherine O’Leary’s cow continues to echo through the centuries with unabated vigor.
The story of the Great Peshtigo Fire has not been told nearly often enough, and yet it is a story that will captivate every reader. Parts of it seem to border on science fiction: trees exploding in the heat of the fire, a tornado made of flames sweeping through an entire town in a single hour, birds caught up and burned in mid-air. Yet all of it is true, and so are the stories of the people who witnessed the fire first-hand and survived it.
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Paperback – Illustrated, February 1, 2016
by Daniel Brown (Author)
On September 1, 1894 two forest fires converged on the town of Hinckley, Minnesota, trapping over 2,000 people. Daniel J. Brown recounts the events surrounding the fire in the first and only book on to chronicle the dramatic story that unfolded. Whereas Oregon's famous "Biscuit" fire in 2002 burned 350,000 acres in one week, the Hinckley fire did the same damage in five hours. The fire created its own weather, including hurricane-strength winds, bubbles of plasma-like glowing gas, and 200-foot-tall flames. In some instances, "fire whirls," or tornadoes of fire, danced out from the main body of the fire to knock down buildings and carry flaming debris into the sky. Temperatures reached 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit--the melting point of steel.As the fire surrounded the town, two railroads became the only means of escape. Two trains ran the gauntlet of fire. One train caught on fire from one end to the other. The heroic young African-American porter ran up and down the length of the train, reassuring the passengers even as the flames tore at their clothes. On the other train, the engineer refused to back his locomotive out of town until the last possible minute of escape. In all, more than 400 people died, leading to a revolution in forestry management practices and federal agencies that monitor and fight wildfires today. Author Daniel Brown has woven together numerous survivors' stories, historical sources, and interviews with forest fire experts in a gripping narrative that tells the fascinating story of one of North America's most devastating fires and how it changed the nation.
Hardcover – January 1, 2001
by Juan Crespí (Author), Alan K. Brown (Editor)
Text: English, Spanish (translation) Original Language: Spanish
Hardcover – January 1, 2006
by Paul Collins (Author)
Paperback – May 21, 2012
by Robert W. Cermak (Author)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 2005-06-30 Excerpt: ...that were constructed by the CCC in the mid-thirties. The master plan and fire replanning described a Region 5 fire control organization that consisted of lookouts, tank truck suppression crews, a few guards and fire prevention men. The tank truck crew became the backbone of a fire pre-suppression organization that remains essentially unchanged today. The improvements that have occurred since 1940 have largely been in quality of equipment, improved tactics and better communication. Telephone lines were the most important form of communications in the region through World War II, but radio communications made giant strides during the thirties. Radio had a checkered history in the Forest Service. Early experiments in the Apache National Forest (Region 3) in 1916 were followed by wireless transmissions during the Army air patrols of 1919-1921. Because tight budgets were the rule during the twenties, Roy Headley took a dim view of most efforts to improve radio communications. Throughout the early development of radio by the Forest Service, Headley had to be conscious of an agreement with American Telephone Telegraph Company, whereby the Forest Service received lowered telephone rates so long as it did not foster a communication system that competed with the telephone company.38 Headley's opposition changed to strong support after he and Chief Forester Greeley witnessed the demonstration in August 1927 of a crude little contraption built by Dwight L. Beatty of Region 1. Beatty had been a mule skinner, ranger and forest supervisor. While working in the Region 1 office, he educated himself in radio technology and built the contraption to prove that a portable radio could be built. After the demonstration, he was assigned the responsibility for radio developm...
Paperback – May 15, 2009
by Jeff Forester (Author)
Author Jeff Forester describes how humans have occupied and managed the northern borderlands of Minnesota, from tribal burning to pioneer and industrial logging to evolving conceptions of wilderness and restoration forestry. On the surface a story of Minnesota's borderlands, The Forest for the Trees more broadly explores the nation's history of resource extraction and wilderness preservation, casting forward to consider what today's actions may mean for the future of America's forests. From early settlers and industrialists seeking the pine forests' wealth to modern visitors valuing the tranquility of protected wilderness, the region known today as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness has offered assorted treasures to each generation. By focusing on the ecological history of the BWCAW's Winton watershed, Forester shows how the global story of logging, forestry, conservation, and resource management unfolded in the northern woods of Minnesota. The result is a telling exploration of human attitudes toward wilderness: the grasp after a forest's resources, the battles between logging and tourist interests, and decades of conservation efforts that have left northern Minnesota denuded of white pine and threatened with potentially devastating fire. The result of a decade of research, The Forest for the Trees chronicles six phases of human interaction with the BWCAW: tribal, burning the land for cultivation; pioneering, harvesting lumber on a small scale; industrial, accelerating the cut and consequently increasing the fire danger; conservation, reacting to both widespread fires and unsustainable harvest levels; wilderness, recognizing important values in woodlands beyond timber; and finally restoration, using prescribed burns and other techniques to return the forest to its "natural" state. Whether promoted or excluded, one constant through these phases is fire. The Forest for the Trees explores how tribal people burned the land to encourage agriculture, how conservationists and others later fought fire in the woods by completely suppressing it, and finally how scientific understanding brought the debate full circle, as recent controlled burns in the BWCAW seek to lessen significant fuel loads that could produce fires of unprecedented magnitude.Paperback – January 1, 1994
by Rollo Arnold (Author)
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