The Great Chicago Fire Research Paper

On October 8, 1871, the villagers of Chicago were surprisingly awoken by a loud roar with their rooms instantly engulfed by flames. This disastrous event would go on to be known as The Great Chicago Fire. The fire leveled more than three square miles. People tried to escape the fire by getting to the North side of the Chicago River, but the winds were so strong that it went past the river and finally stopped when in got to Lake Michigan. Unfortunately, around 300 people were burnt to death and 100,000 were left homeless. After the damage of The Great Chicago Fire, the public generated many unlikely theories on how it started such as Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, Peg Leg Sullivan, or even a comet; the most believable theory, however, is that a gambler

Beila’s comet was split into two in 1846 and the remnants fell to Earth as meteor showers. The night the fire ignited, people in the village heard a terrible roar, almost like a tornado. Even though the people in the town had seen plenty of wildfires, they never had seen one like The Great Chicago Fire: “A whirlwind of flame in great clouds from above the tops of the trees” (“Chicago Fire” 2). Gaseous balls of fire hit the Earth descending from the sky. Soon after, the village was instantly in big flames. The townspeople inferred that this fire was coming from space from everything dropping out of the sky. The fire spread extremely fast and did tremendous damage to the city of Chicago. The same year as The Great Chicago Fire, fires also started in Wisconsin and Michigan due to natural causes. Before The Great Chicago fire there were several smaller fires in Chicago, also started from natural causes (Latson 1). All of these smaller fires’ factors were similar the those of The Great Chicago Fire. Most fires that start in a house or out in a field are easy to catch and extinguish before they spread to where they can’t be tamed. Beila’s comet was untamable and burnt everything South of the Chicago River (Gunn 1). The flames of the fire had an unusual character and did extraordinary damage that no one had seen before. Buildings that were constructed with building-stone, which were considered fire-proof, were completely melted. As Sheahan and Upton say, “The huge stone and