Rating: 
Summary: Succint and moving history of a disaster and it's aftermath.
Review: I have bought a copy of this book, and I am recommending it to my friends and family. By covering the history of the area, the town, and the people in it before the fire, the authors make more compelling the story of the disaster that annihilated so many people, and transformed a potential boom-town into a backwater. Also, after the national tragedy of September 11th, we should be reminded of the tragedies of the past, and the remarkable response of the American people to help those in need.
Rating: 
Summary: Check the numbers and the facts
Review: I very much agree with Robert R Baldwin and his evaluation of the 640 tree / acre snafu analysis. There are clearly numerous other errors that would most likely have been eliminated with a knowledgeable proofreading.
Examples: Page 225; they mention that there are 640 SQUARE acres in a square mile of land.
Page 109; "known as fall streaks or virga, are the graceful shafts of dry lightning preceding a storm." While virga, (rainfall) may be a sponsor of lightning (electricity), virga and lightning are two different elements of a T- Storm.
Page 113; has a 1/2-sentence mention of humidity. The Index does not list humidity; I believe humidity is mentioned only minimally once or twice elsewhere. Failure to understand the extreme importance of humidity in wildland fire behavior is quite telling.
Also page 113; Not recognizing that the "great round balls," "black balls" coming down from the clouds described by survivors in "Chicago, Peshtigo, Menekaune, and Williamsonville" are obviously thunderstorm downbursts. Which, by themselves offer the most reliable explanation of the fires extreme effects, especially in view of the apparent lack of any witness accounts of tornados coming down from the T-Cells. This obsession with a tornado scenario seems to have clouded the author's objectivity.
Their are numerous instances of small towns listed throughout the narrative that are not shown on one of the three maps. While the reader can deduct their approximate locations, this is neither timely nor convenient.
The authors are given to overstatement but fail to fully quote witnesses except for letters and telegrams. I was longing for the words of those that were there, not another analysis.
Reader beware.
The book does set the table well for the characters, and you do feel heartfelt sympathy for a few of the people that are allowed to come to life.
Rating: 
Summary: Reads like a novel
Review: I'm a Wisconsin Native, and reside in Chicago. The Chicago fire is very well known and publicized disaster, but the Peshtigo Fire's facts were somewhat of a mystery, thus my interest piqued regarding the subject matter. I really enjoyed the flow of the book, and felt as a non-fiction book, it read like a novel, as the story unfolded from beginning to post-disaster.
The facts were written well into the victim's stories, and the reader gets to know the main characters involved; even though there exists vaguely documented information, I imagine due to the large loss of life itself. It intrigues me enough to read more pf the subject matter from the books the authors used as part of their research. I highly recommend the book. Well done.
Rating:
Summary: Reads like a novel
Review: I'm a Wisconsin Native, and reside in Chicago. The Chicago fire is very well known and publicized disaster, but the Peshtigo Fire's facts were somewhat of a mystery, thus my interest piqued regarding the subject matter. I really enjoyed the flow of the book, and felt as a non-fiction book, it read like a novel, as the story unfolded from beginning to post-disaster.
The facts were written well into the victim's stories, and the reader gets to know the main characters involved; even though there exists vaguely documented information, I imagine due to the large loss of life itself. It intrigues me enough to read more pf the subject matter from the books the authors used as part of their research. I highly recommend the book. Well done.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling Non-Fiction
Review: It is unusual, in this age of quick turnover and expediency, to find something created with both care AND creativity, artistry AND hard fact. Such is the case with "Firestorm at Peshtigo". It is as compelling and emotionally written as a fine novel; at the same time, it effectively fills a gaping void in American history. Obviously well-researched, it should become the standard reference for this particular event, as well as a best-seller along the lines of "The Johnstown Flood" and "The Perfect Storm". Bravo!!
Rating:
Summary: Overlooked history
Review: On October 8, 1871, same day as the Great Chicago Fire, a huge conflagration swept through the lumber town of Peshtigo, WI. Summer drought, windy days, and possibly a tornado combined to create a firestorm. 2400 square miles of timber and farmland were destroyed, as were several towns. Perhaps 2000 people died. Peshtigo was remote, and earlier fires had destroyed telegraph lines, so although the scale of the disaster was considerably larger than Chicago's, the loss was relatively unknown and soon forgotten. Authors gather information from letters, diaries, newspapers, and interviews. In overheated language, they recreate the politics, economic realities, and the special weather circumstances that combined to denude an area larger than Rhode Islant. Well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Overlooked history
Review: On October 8, 1871, same day as the Great Chicago Fire, a huge conflagration swept through the lumber town of Peshtigo, WI. Summer drought, windy days, and possibly a tornado combined to create a firestorm. 2400 square miles of timber and farmland were destroyed, as were several towns. Perhaps 2000 people died. Peshtigo was remote, and earlier fires had destroyed telegraph lines, so although the scale of the disaster was considerably larger than Chicago's, the loss was relatively unknown and soon forgotten. Authors gather information from letters, diaries, newspapers, and interviews. In overheated language, they recreate the politics, economic realities, and the special weather circumstances that combined to denude an area larger than Rhode Islant. Well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Wisconsin's Fire Tornado
Review: On October 8, 1871, the same day of the famous Chicago fire, a tornado was heading toward the lumber-mill town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, 262 miles north of Chicago, near the coast of Lake Michigan. All summer, forest fires had been burning in the area out of control. As the tornado approached the fires, it drew upon them for energy, becoming a new engine of massive destruction five miles wide. Nothng like it had been seen since the Great Fire of London in 1666. Nothing like it would be seen again until the saturation bombing of German cities by the allies in the Second World War. People later described the approach of the fire tornado as that of a roaring earthquake that shook the ground. The 100-mile-per-hour winds tore great pines out by the roots, leaving craters 70 feet across. They tossed a locomotive like a twig. It ignited clouds of hydrogen that had been created by the forest fires and threw them to ground in great fireballs. The heat of the tornado reached 2,000 degrees, hotter than an atomic blast. It melted railroad lines and the wheels of railroad cars and whipped sand into melted glass. It exploded buildings and threw them into the air. It sucked the water from the earth, leaving all the wells dry. Survivors recalled seeing humans, horses, and other animals explode in flame. The tornado flattened 2,400 square miles of forest and killed 2,200 people. Most of those who survived hid in the water under the banks of rivers and streams. Prominent in the story is the experience of the local priest, Fr. Pernin, At the last minute, he decided to rescue the Blessed Sacrament and the chalice. He dropped his key and could not find it, so he picked up the wooden tabernacle and took it outside and put it on the wagon. He raced the horse and wagon to the river as everything around them exploded in fire. He and his horse survived though both were badly burned. The next morning, he realized that all the survivors had lost relatives and everything they owned. The survivors, most of them blind and burnt, wandered the blistering and smoldering landscape looking for the bodies of relatives and neighbors who had not been pulverized and blown away. Only slowly did news of what happened at Pestigo reach the rest of the world. All the attention had been focused on the Chicago fire, where 300 had died. Most of the survivors who did not die of infections and disease faced a lifetime of mental withdrawal and trauma syndrome. Few of them could speak of what they had seen.
Rating:
Summary: Intelligent and Astonishing
Review: The extraordinary "voice" of the fire that took the lives of thousands of people in the town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin still thunders in my head. The historical events of this book and the well researced weather patterns that led up to the deadliest fire in American History is at once compelling and fasinating to witness in print.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but not the best
Review: The fire at Peshtigo has been overlooked for so long. Firestorm at Peshtigo is a wonderfully reseached book, with a great bibliograghy for those wanting to read further on the subject. For those who are interested in the politics and science of the fire, this book is a five star book. However, I'm more interested in the personal accounts and case histories of the people of Peshtigo. Fire at Peshtigo by Robert W. Wells captures more of the the human interest perspective of this monstrous calamity.
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