October 8, 1871
The air was again full of smoke. Many people were quiet from exhaustion and fear; some had a sense of impending doom. Still others visited the saloon and had dinner parties like it was a normal day.
As the day grew darker, a strange red glow appeared in the west. The wind began to pick up at dusk, carried dust, ashes, and sparks. Father Pernin wrote:
“On looking towards the west, whence the wind had persistently blown for hours past, I perceived above the dense cloud of smoke over-hanging the earth, a vivid red reflection of immense extent, and then suddenly struck on my ear, strangely audible in the preternatural silence reigning around, a distant roaring, yet muffled sound, announcing that the elements were in commotion somewhere.”
Peshtigo
Around ten o’clock, the low rumbling sound that people began noticing grew into a roar. The sound was described as like a freight train or huge rushing waterfall.
Suddenly, big sheets of flame blew out of the forest. Everything in the fire’s path was instantly consumed. Men with a premonition had gotten out the pumping engine they’d used in the past to spray water from the river on the fire saw that their efforts would be useless, and they ran. High winds blew people to the ground, and the hot air burned people’s lungs. Dust and smoke blinded them as they ran for shelter or to the river. Sparks and flames blowing through the air set hair and clothes on fire. Many died trying to escape.
Chaos reigned. The wind, heat, smoke, combined with people heading in opposite directions—some toward the river, some the other way—created confusion and panic. Father Pernin describes the scene:
“The air was no longer fit to breathe, full as it was of sand, dust, ashes, cinders, sparks, smoke, and fire. It was almost impossible to keep one’s eyes unclosed, to distinguish the road, or to recognize people, though the way was crowded with pedestrians, as well as vehicles crossing and crashing against each other in the general flight. Some were hastening towards the river, others from it, whilst all were struggling alike in the grasp of the hurricane. A thousand discordant deafening noises rose on the air together. The neighing of horses, falling of chimneys, crashing of uprooted trees, roaring and whistling of the wind, crackling of fire as it ran with lightning-like rapidity from house to house–all sounds were there save that of the human voice. People seemed stricken dumb by terror.”
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