The forgotten story of the Great Peshtigo Fire, 1871.
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Transcript of The forgotten story of the Great Peshtigo Fire, 1871.
The Blood-Red Night
The forgotten story of the Great Peshtigo Fire, 1871
Author: Lauren Tarshis
abandon
“ But few families had enough money to simply abandon their land and start again someplace new.” (p. 7)
Definition: to leave forever
brush
“Farmers used fire to clear their land of tree stumps and brush left behind by the lumberjacks.” (pg. 6)
Definition: small trees and shrubs
charred
“By the morning, more than a billion trees were gone, and an area twice the size of Rhode Island was a sea of charred trees and ash.” (pg. 9)
Definition: burned
flammable
“These rare fires happen when there are strong winds and large amounts of flammable material—like trees–to feed the flames.” (pg. 8)
Definition: likely to catch fire
inferno
“Whipped up by the wind, the small fires in the forest grew bigger until, finally, they all joined together into one monstrous inferno.” (pg. 8)
Definition: a raging fire or place of intense heat
marsh
“Just 40 years earlier, Chicago was a small town on a mosquito-ridden marsh.” (pg. 6)
Definition: an area of wet, low land
parched
“Little rain had fallen during the summer, and the entire Midwest of the United States was parched.” (pg. 6)
Definition: very dried out or thirsty
sawmill
“The river’s rushing waters carried the giant logs downstream to Peshtigo’s sawmill, where they were transformed into lumber for building.” (pg. 6)
Definition: a place where people use machines to saw logs into lumber
“October 8 dawned unnaturally hot, and the sky glowed orange from the many small fires smoldering in the forest.” (pg. 7)
Definition: to burn and smoke slowly, usually with no flames
smoldering