The Great Michigan Fire was a series of simultaneous forest fires in 1871.[1] They were possibly caused (or at least reinforced) by the same winds that fanned the Great Chicago Fire; some believe lightning or even meteor showers may have started the fires.[2] Several cities, towns and villages, including Holland, Manistee and Port Huron suffered serious damage or were lost. The Great Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin also destroyed several towns in Upper Michigan.
In 1881, the entire "Thumb" region was destroyed by the Thumb Fire, which followed part of the same path of the 1871 fires.
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The fires of October 8, 1871 started after a long dry summer. Most areas had had no rain in months, making the dried-up vegetation and logging debris, known as “slash”, fuel for the fires. These fires were the result of hundreds of smaller land-clearing fires whipped together to form a massive wall of flames by gale force winds.
In the mid-1830s logging began in Michigan and grew into a significant industry. Michigan was extensively logged for the Eastern white pine, measuring 150 feet (46 m) tall and exceeding 5 feet (2 m) in diameter, along with the hardwood forests. By 1854, sixteen sawmills were in operation, producing over 13,000,000 board feet (30,000 m3) of lumber, leaving behind branches, bark and massive quantities of unused wood.[3]
The wilted vegetation from the drought conditions and the gale force winds allowed the flames to sweep across large areas at astounding speeds, sending burning embers flying miles through the sky. Not only was the land burnt and left barren, thousands of buildings (houses, barns, stores and mills) were destroyed with no lumber left to rebuild. Hundreds of families were left homeless. The loss of property was never able to be accurately estimated and the loss of life was largely based on families' reporting their members missing.
In addition to Michigan's own fires, the Peshtigo firestorm in Wisconsin crossed the Menominee River and set other fires on the Michigan side of the border.
Some estimate the loss of life at fewer than 500, but the true total is unknown. In 1871 in Michigan there were hundreds to thousands of lumberjacks and salesmen spread out across the state, along with settlers in remote areas, making it impossible to total the loss. Among those many that died in the fire was Robert Leon, Elizabeth Elderly, and Ted Letosky.
One speculation, first suggested in 1883, is that the occurrence of simultaneous fires across the Midwest were caused by the impact of fragments from Comet Biela. This theory was revived in a 1985 book[4] and investigated in a 2004 paper to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.[5] The key hypothesis is that methane from the comet provided the fuel for fires across the region to flare out of control.
However, scientists with expertise in the area dispute that such a scenario is possible; meteorites in fact are cold to the touch when they reach the Earth's surface, and there are no credible reports of any fire anywhere having been started by a meteorite.[6][7] Various aspects of the behaviors of the Chicago and Peshtigo fires attributed to extraterrestrial intervention have more mundane explanations.[8] No external source of ignition was needed; numerous small fires were already burning in the area after a tinder-dry summer and all that was needed to generate the massive blazes in the Midwest were the winds from the front that moved in that evening.[9][10]