The Night Peshtigo Died is a historical novel about the 1871 Peshtigo Fire. It is often remembered as the "forgotten fire" because it broke out on the exact same day as the Great Chicago Fire. While the Chicago fire gained more historical fame, the Peshtigo Fire was significantly more deadly and remains the deadliest wildfire in United States history.
Key Aspects About the Book:
Human Experiences: This book offers a detailed portrayal of the human experiences amidst such catastrophic events brings history vividly to life, allowing readers to feel both the immense tragedy and the resilience of the people.
Primary Source Detail: The book is based on personal interviews with survivors and their descendants, offering the kind of "first-person" emotional depth that is powerful to the readers.
Atmospheric Conditions: The fire was fueled by a prolonged drought and a powerful "cyclonic wind" (a firestorm) that caused many small, local fires to merge into a massive conflagration.
Casualties: The fire claimed the lives of an estimated 1,500 to 2,500 people and destroyed approximately 1.2 million acres of land across Northeast Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
The book depicts the struggles of a typical family in the area, focusing on the lead-up before the fire, the event itself, and then the aftermath while highlighting the firestorm's immense destruction and the community's suffering. It's fictionalized account honors the human and natural history of the region making it a a compelling, educational, and deeply moving read.
Born in 1930, Jim Chizek, retired Wisconsin conservation warden, number 73, has lived his entire life in Wisconsin. Before working as a state warden, he was raised on a dairy farm in northern Wisconsin, worked as a logger, and on various jobs in railroading. After serving in the Marine Corps during the Korean War, he returned to the northern part of the state, where he married his wife, Shirley. In 1955, he began his career in conservation, working in various parts of the state under the tutelage of experienced wardens and spent one winter on snowshoes surveying winter deeryards for the state game division, where he saw many starving and dead deer. He served eleven years as a field warden at Portage before accepting a promotion to district warden stationed at Park Falls, supervising the law enforcement effort of three northern counties. He was seriously injured in a car accident while working deer shiners in the fall of 1968. Taking a job in the chief warden’s office in the capital city of Madison, doing budget and planning and undercover law enforcement, he retired in 1986 after thirty-one years of service.
Beginning his writing career after retirement, he successfully published two books: Game Warden Centurion and Protectors of the Outdoors. He also wrote freelance for several magazines and for the Wisconsin Outdoor News, a conservation newspaper. Intrigued by the tragic fire in Northeast Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in 1871, he now wrote The Night Peshtigo Died. His writings are faithful to the scene, time, cause, and the human suffering of the firestorm dubbed the Peshtigo Fire.
Other Books by this Author
This book is a collection of stories about the history of game wardens in Wisconsin. All stories are based on actual happenings and the tales have been kept as authentic as possible. Trying circumstances are present in many stories and the unimaginable is said and felt.
This book gives a good overview of the hostility and other challenges wardens experience as they protect our natural resources for us. The book is quite readable, with humor as well as tragedy mixed throughout. It is easy to pick up and put down for quick reading sessions. If you like the outdoors, you should read this book to gain an appreciation for those who guard it for us.
None of the stories in this book are routine. They tales are about the unusual and dramatic circumstances that wardens sometimes find themselves caught up in. Adventures of this type could and have occurred, in all other states to county, state and federal wardens.
Most of these experiences were rewarding and some downright hilarious. Some were unpleasant and at times miserable or dangerous.
The book is an assemblance of short entertaining stories. Throw a log on the fire and enjoy reading these stories. You will be able to picture yourself in some of these predicaments.
The “Peshtigo fire” of 1871 was a result of many small fires carelessly kindled and left to burn for weeks on end. These many fires suddenly were visited by a cyclonic wind joining the fires into great conflagrations.
The author poetically takes his reader back in time to relieve the horrible nightmare that was so many people's final reality. Experience the horror in the full color illustrations of old publishings and new. Experience the tragedy of Peshtigo's great loss in the collection of devastating photos taken after the fire, and the memorials created by the surviving townsfolk. Hellfire at Peshtigo is an impressive collection of work dedicated to the lost souls of the “Peshtigo fire” and the men and women who fight fires to save lives today and throughout history.