Learning from History—The Great Fire

Shout out to those living on the Wasatch Front in Utah:  Sage and Plow in American FOrk is holding their first annual emergency preparedness fair tomorrow, Friday, October 3, from 9am to 7pm.  I will be one of the vendors there and I'd love to meet you!

My husband’s scare with congestive heart failure and our thoughts that we might have to downsize prompted me to start considering which books to part with.  Now that his condition is nowhere near as dire as initially feared, we aren’t considering a move.  However, I would still like to reduce the number of books by reading a book and then passing it on.  Reading one book per month is one of my goals for 2024, and I’m a little behind right now.  So it’s best to begin with the children’s books.  LOL. 

Even the kids’ books here have a preparedness theme to them.

The Great Fire by Jim Murphy presents the history of the 1871 Chicago fire, the one attributed to Mrs. O’Leary’s cow and lantern one hot night and sung about around the fire at children’s summer camps.  While news articles of the time blamed the hard-working Irish woman (the poor make easier scapegoats), historical accounts indicate she had long been in bed.  Perhaps the fire began in the hay delivered earlier that day?  We’ll never know, but it did start in or around the O-Leary barn. 

A fire the previous night had exhausted the area’s firemen.  Wood construction for all homes and businesses was the norm for that period, and most especially among the poorer classes, as it was the least expensive material.  Chicago had experienced many fires in the past, but at this time the danger was extreme.  No rain had fallen in over three weeks and everything was tinder dry that fateful night on October 8. 

As the fire began, neighbors immediately set about evacuating to safety, but only a few blocks away.  Because the fire wouldn’t spread that far.  The firemen would put it out as they always do. 

Unfortunately, things were a little different that night.  For one, nearly half an hour passed before anyone thought to ring the alarm.  So there was that delay.  For another, it was hot, and there was a steady wind coming from the southwest.  A hot wind. 

People blocks away saw the smoke and assumed it was a flare-up from the previous night’s fire.  The firemen were on it.  No need to worry. 

Except they weren’t.  And it was windy.  And all the buildings were wooden and dry.  It was a perfect storm. 

As the fire spread, people were awakened from sleep by concerned neighbors.  They quickly gathered belongings into wagons and prepared to depart.  But not too quickly, because there was still plenty of time.  And then the embers started falling like snow.  And it was sheer pandemonium as people attempted to escape the rapidly advancing flames. 

Lesson #1, one that we all know:  It’s better to panic early and beat the rush.  Don’t wait for a mandatory evacuation order.  Be the first ones to leave. 

Lesson #2:  Don’t take unnecessary material belongings with you.  These people were carting out mattresses, couches, and kitchenware.  Most of it clogged the streets and then caught fire, spreading the fire further.  You also know this. 

Lesson #3, one that was the biggest lesson for me when I first read this book several years ago:  If you are caught in a fire, it will be sheer pandemonium.  So incredibly many families were separated in the press of the crowds and confusion.  So many wasted time looking for loved ones and being unable to find them.  Living as we do with the extreme risk of wildfire every summer and fall, I put day-glow yellow t-shirts in our fire bucket (which also contains masks and work gloves).  It might help us find each other if we get separated.  It might not.  I hope never to have the opportunity to test that theory out.

In previous years, whenever dry lightning threatened, we put our electronics, wallets, and documents in the truck and changed into jeans and boots.  These past two years we’ve had our emergency supplies stored at our son’s house 10 minutes away, with additional totes and documents by the door in case going to his house became impossible. 

The Great Fire happened again in Paradise, California.  It happened in Maui.  Hurricane Helene destroyed so many towns in North Carolina. 

We’ve watched how quickly disasters can occur.  Many can’t be fully prepared for.  But any advance preparation we do may give us precious minutes or seconds.  And peace of mind.