The great Thumb Fire took place on September 5, 1881, in the Thumb area of Michigan in the United States. The fire, which burned over a million acres (4,000 km²) in less than a day, was the consequence of drought, hurricane-force winds, heat, the after-effects of the Port Huron Fire of 1871, and the ecological damage wrought by the era's logging techniques.
The blaze, also called the Great Thumb Fire, the Great Forest Fire of 1881 and the Huron Fire, killed 282 people in Sanilac, Lapeer, Tuscola and Huron counties. The damage estimate was $2,347,000[1] (which is $53,236,434 adjusted for inflation).
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The summer of 1881 had been extremely hot, and the Thumb had virtually no rain during July and August. There were forest fires beginning in mid-August, and on August 31, a fire started in northern Lapeer County and destroyed several buildings in Sandusky and Deckerville in nearby Sanilac County. On Monday, September 5, the town of Bad Axe, in Huron County, burst into flames. Winds spread the fire to Huron City and Grindstone City. The fire continued to spread through Tuesday and Wednesday, September 6 and 7, consuming most of Huron, Tuscola, Sanilac and Lapeer counties.[2]
In 1881 Clara Barton, at the age of 60, founded the American Red Cross. The first official disaster the organization responded to was the Michigan "Thumb Fire" of 1881. The Red Cross provided money, clothes and household items.[3] After the fire of 1881 more than 14,000 people were made dependent on public aid and over 2000 barns, dwellings and schools were destroyed.
After the fires of 1881, people started to organize firefighting plans and by the 1900s the timber barons were suffering huge losses due to forest fires, so they developed the Northern Forest and Protection Association to manage forest fires in Michigan, later replaced by the USDA Forest Service.[4] However, the Ford Motor Company, which owned large areas of forest, is noted for already having serious conservation and cleanup methods in place, along with maintaining their own fire towers and timber patrols.[4] Firefighting started with man vs. nature; fires would erupt and burn until they ran out of fuel sources or were extinguished by rain. The early settlers would use bucket brigades, but they were no match for the raging fires. It was not until 1917 that Michigan purchased its first tractor for firefighting. The first fire truck was developed and used in the early 1930s, leading to firefighting as we know it today.
