Deborah Hopkinson

As the sun sank over the town of Peshti­go, Wis­con­sin, one warm Octo­ber night in 1871, a smoky haze hung in the dry air. There had been lit­tle rain, and small fires had been rolling through town con­tin­u­ous­ly since the sum­mer. For weeks the peo­ple had tried to pro­tect their homes and busi­ness­es from fire. But they could not pro­tect them­selves from what would cul­mi­nate in the dead­liest fire in Amer­i­can history.

As indus­tri­al­iza­tion surged across the coun­try, and West­ward col­o­niza­tion lev­eled forests to build cities, fires became a main­stay in Amer­i­can life. And as pop­u­la­tions grew, so too did the human toll that fire could exact. Through the nine­teenth and twen­ti­eth cen­turies, Amer­i­cans searched for new and inno­v­a­tive ways to com­bat the threat of fire. And with cli­mate change threat­en­ing to set the whole world aflame, we are once again in a fight for our planet’s future.

Through the eyes of sci­en­tists, wit­ness­es, and sur­vivors of ter­ri­ble fires alike, author Deb­o­rah Hop­kin­son brings the hor­rif­ic his­to­ry of dead­ly fires to life, trac­ing a line from the Peshti­go and Great Chica­go fires of 1871 to the wild­fires rag­ing in the west­ern Unit­ed States today. Filled with more than 50 peri­od pho­tographs and illus­tra­tions, facts, and pull-out box­es for eager non­fic­tion readers.