Peshtigo Wildfire

the wildfire that raged through Peshtigo, Wis., and more than a million acres of surrounding land in October 1871 was the worst recorded wildfire in U.S. history. Eyewitness accounts described the blaze as a "tornado of fire" and almost 1,200 people were reported dead. Most sources place the blame for the fire on an unusually hot, dry summer and the slash-and-burn logging techniques that were common at the time.

Today, water-dumping jumbo jets, high-pressure water lines and fire-tracking Doppler radar help us tackle forest fires and keep them from taking lives, if not property. All that was still a long way in the future back in 1871, though, and rural areas like Peshtigo were nearly defenseless against raging fires.