As towns appeared in the Midwest during the 1800s, disaster began to strike. In the North Woods, the debris left from uncontrolled logging fueled deadly fires.

In October 1871, the Peshtigo Fire burned nearly four million acres in Michigan and Wisconsin, killing more than 1,500 people and consuming 16 towns. The fire was so hot that embers were carried over Green Bay, a span of open water five-to-six-miles wide, igniting fires on the Door Peninsula.

The Michigan Fire occurred in jack pine and mixed conifers in September 1881 on the lower peninsula of Michigan. When it was over, more than 1 million acres had burned and 169 lives had been lost.

In September 1894, the Hinckley Fire in east-central Minnesota destroyed six towns and 256,000 acres in just four hours. More than 400 people died. The fire burned to the edge of Duluth before being stopped. The Wisconsin Fire occurred during the same month, burning over 2 million acres with heavy loss of life.

More recently, the Seney Fire was started by lightning in August 1976 on the Seney National Wildlife Refuge on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The fire burned 78,000 acres, had 1,200 people fighting it, and cost $12 million to suppress. The fire burned all winter in the organic soils underground, destroying roads, dikes, and other facilities before finally being extinguished by snow melt the following spring.

The Mack Lake Fire occurred in the jack pine forests of the central lower peninsula of Michigan in May 1980. In the course of six hours, the blaze covered 20,000 acres, destroying 44 houses. It consumed 270,000 tons of standing timber and deadfall, producing an estimated 3 trillion BTUs of energy, roughly equivalent to nine Hiroshima bombs.

In May 1990, the Stephan Bridge Road Fire on Michigan’s lower peninsula destroyed 76 homes, 125 other structures, and 37 vehicles, while burning almost 6,000 acres of jack pine and mixed forest in a single day.