The Great Chicago Fire was a major milestone in the city’s history. The fire started on October 8th, 1871 and did not end until October 10th, 1871. People never saw this fire coming which might have made it even worse. The only reason it spread so far was because everything was made out of wood, the ground was parched and the wind was blowing that night; the reason it stopped was because it had started raining. Although the fire destroyed most of the city, it was a positive turning point in history. The Chicago Fire improved firefighting and their equipment, new buildings that were made out of fireproof materials, and it brought big investors to the city.
There were more than 334,000 people in Chicago at the time (Burgan). Ninety percent of the buildings in Chicago were made out of wood during the 1800’s. Streets and even sidewalks were also made out of wood. There were fifty-six miles of wooden roads and five hundred and sixty one miles of sidewalks. In 1871, there was little to no rain during that summer, therefore, the ground was very dry which made it more vulnerable. Mr. and Mrs. O’Leary were some residents in Chicago at this time; they lived at 137 DeKoven Street where the fire actually started. The O’Leary’s had five children; they also had a barn filled with five cows, one calf, one horse, two tons of hay and two tons of coal which was a huge fire hazard. The barn and everything in it was Mrs. O’Leary’s livelihood but the barn was not insured because they were very poor. Mr. O’Leary worked as a laborer, and Mrs. O’Leary kept her cows in a barn selling their milk to the neighbors (Edmond).
October 8th, 1871, was one of the worst days in history. A fire started at the O’Leary residence at about nine o’clock at night (chi...
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...y from the O’Leary’s barn so how was he able to hear about the fire before the O’Leary’s did? Bales’ thinks the Regan might have been in the barn with Sullivan. Historians agree that the fire did actually start behind the O’Leary barn. In 1997, the Chicago Council passed an ordinance exonerating Mrs. O’Leary of all guilt. That exoneration was convinced by Bales’ work. What happened that night will always remain a mystery (Edmond).
The Great Chicago Fire was very devastating. Many people lost everything that had. Chicago now has better equipment for the firefighters, better building materials and some big investors. The economy and the population have both increased since 1871. There is no set explanation of how the fire started but there are definitely a lot of stories about how it could have started. Mrs. O’Leary and her cow will forever live as a Chicago legend.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire not only affected the city of New York, but also the rest of the country. It forever changed the way our country would look at safety regulations in factories and buildings. The fire proved to America what can and will happen if we over-look safety regulations and over-crowd buildings. Unfortunately, 146 lives are taken before we fully understand this concept.
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America is about Teddy Roosevelt’s attempt to save the beautiful scenery of the West. Roosevelt used his presidency as a springboard to campaign his want of protection for our woodlands, while doing this he created the Forest Service from this battle. In this book Timothy Egan explores the Northern Rockies to analyze the worst wildfire in United States history. This disaster is known as the “Big Burn,” the 1910 fire quickly engulfed three million acres of land in Idaho, Montana and Washington, completely burned frontier towns and left a smoke cloud so thick that it hovered over multiple cities even after the flames had been extinguished.
The back panel of 1 Dead in Attic: Post-Katrina Stories by columnist Chris Rose does not summarize his self-publication. Rather, it dedicates the book to a man named Thomas Coleman who met his demise in his attic with a can of juice and the comforts of a bedspread at his side. This dedication closes with “There were more than a thousand like him.” That is the life force of Rose’s book. It is not a narrative, it does not feature a clear conclusion, and there is not a distinct beginning, middle, or end. Rather, it exists as a chronology of Rose’s struggle to reestablish normalcy following a time of turmoil. Rose himself states in his introduction “After the storm, I just started writing, not attempting to carve out any niche but just to tell
In the book Heat Wave A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, by Eric Klinenberg expose how a number of social, political, and economical factors created one of the largest and most traumatic events in recent history. The Chicago heat wave in 1995 was a disaster, which led to over 700 heat-related deaths in Chicago over a five days period creating. Most of the victims of the heat wave were poor elderly residents of the city, who didn’t have any relative or were neglected by the public officials and was unable to purchase air-conditioning units for their home. Most of the elderly isolated themselves and refused to open windows or sleep outside in fear of crime. Alot of lives were loss or in destress because of isolation, poverty and media who played a major role by portraying the countless deaths on the natural disaster and highlighting of negative activities especially in the urban area
In the 19th century, the population in Chicago was quickly rising to great numbers. In 1850, population reached a great 30,000. Areas in all parts of Chicago started to become extremely over crowded especially downtown. At this point, all structures were built out of wood including buildings, streets, and even sidewalks (“Chicago Fire of 1871”). About one hundred days before the great fire occurred, not even an inch of rain had fallen throughout the city, and heavy, strong winds were blowing through Southwest. Fires were a very common obstacle at the time, but nothing was even close to the fire of 1871. On October 8th, firemen received a call from the neighbor of Catherine O’Leary. Neighbors reported seeing a number of flames appearing from the cow barn. Firemen instantly spotted the fire but miscalculated how big it really was. This event became historically known as the Chicago Fire of 1871 (“People 7 Events”). The three effects of the Chicago Fire of 1871 were the financial and political
Many events led up to the spreading of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 including difficulties at the fire department, the weather, and the types of buildings in Chicago. The cause of the fire is still indefinite today; however, there are many theories how it started. Some believe a cow kicked over a lantern inside a barn while some believe a meteorite fell to the Earth creating the fire. Despite all theories, the inferno became uncontrollable when it could have been put out fairly quickly (Smith).
The City of Detroit, Michigan, seems to be a city on the decline in America. Job prospects some of the lowest in the country and one of the only cities to be shrinking, rather than growing. There are a lot of problems Detroit is facing, one of them is there incidence rate for fires. Detroit is the number one city in America for house fires, not to mention their high rate of fires in the many vacant buildings throughout the city. There are many socioeconomic factors with the city that make the incident rates rise, and response less effective.
Mrs. Rayfield wrote a great article about the devastation left over after this massive fire. I found that her accounts were very detailed and had good pictures to go along with them. I decided to use this source in my essay because she also showed the good effect that the fire had on the city not only the bad. She had a complete different point of view.
About a mile and a half away more mistakes were happening. Each fire house had a watch man who scanned the neighborhood at night for flames and smoke at night. But because of there drought going on added patrols had been organized to put out small fire and turn in the alarm box for bigger one. On duty at the courthouse that night was Mathias Schaffer. When some vistors pointed out the smoke to him he dismissed the sighting a quickly assured them it was just the embers from the preivous nights fire. Several minutes passed when Schaffer looked up and saw leaping flames he was fooled because the new fire almost directly behind the still flickering remenents of the Saturday October 7th fire. Schaffer couldn't find the exact location of the new blaze because of the distance and tall buildings so he sent his assistant to strike box 342. which sent the fire engines a mile away from the actual fire not only did this send them on a wild chase but when Schaffer found the actual correct location and ordered the box 319 his assistant William j refused to send it out claiming he was afraid it would confuse the situation
sure,on the Sunday evening of October 8, 1871 a blaze started in Mrs. O' leary's
March 25th 1911 is the day one of the largest deadly workplace fires occurred. 146 factory workers died on this day as they fought to escape the Triangle Shirtwaist factory only to find locked exits, and faulty fire escapes. The public witnessed this display of poor fire safety and was quickly filled with sorrow. William Gunn Shepard claimed, “I remember their great strike of last year, in which these girls demanded more sanitary workrooms, and more safety precautions in the shops…. These dead bodies told the result.” This fire is often referred to as the tragedy that awakened the consciousness of America. The Triangle Fire showed the public the horrific working conditions that thousands of employees had at the time. The death of these 146
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was a terrible disaster that affected many people. It destroyed the entire city of Chicago and touched people in a way that would change them and the city forever. The start of the fire is unknown, but it could have been prevented if the building structure had been better at that time. But it is known that the fire could have been stopped had their not been so many careless mistakes and errors. As a result of the fire, Chicago was rebuilt and is once again a great city.
Byrne, Mary Ellen. ""Barn Burning": A Story from the '30s." Southeast Missouri State University. Web. 1 Apr. 2011. .
Throughout recorded history, fires have been known to cause great loss of life, property, and knowledge. The Great Fire of London was easily one of the worst fires mankind has ever seen causing large scale destruction and terror. Samuel Pepys described the fire as “A most malicious bloody flame, as one entire arch of fire of above a mile long… the churches, houses and all on fire and flaming at once, and a horrid noise the flames made.” (Britain Express 1).
Fire at any level can be devastating, yet the effects that wildfires have on every worldwide country really has left its mark on the land. As written by world renowned wild fire spokesperson Smokey the Bear, “Every year, wildfires sweeps through parts of the United States setting wilderness and homes ablaze. On average these raging infernos destroy about four to five million acres of land a year. But in 2012, wildfire burned more than 9.3 million acres, an area about the size of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined” (U.S. Wildfires). Destroying homes, crops, towns and of course forests. Yet the effects of these fires can be seen from a negative perspective as well as some positive. Plus there are natural causes as well as manmade that makes these destructive fires erupt and become almost unstoppable in seconds.