Northern California Wildfires Among Deadliest in U.S. History

(Bloomberg) -- The rash of wildfires that ripped across northern California this month and killed at least 40 people is among the deadliest outbreaks in U.S. history.

The following is a list of major U.S. wildfires with more than 40 fatalities:

• Peshtigo, Wisconsin, Oct. 8, 1871
  • Estimated 1,200 to 2,500 dead
  • Peshtigo was a sawmill town. Nearly every building was timber-framed and the roads were covered in saw dust. An estimated 2 billion trees fueled the wind-driven flames across the region. Coincidentally, the Peshtigo fire broke out on the eve of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
• Cloquet-Mooselake, Minnesota, Oct. 12, 1918
  • 453 dead. Scraps and debris from timber industry’s slash cutting fed inferno.
• Hinckley, Minnesota, Sept. 1, 1894
  • As many as 440 dead. Drought across Upper Midwest left region vulnerable to fire.
• Thumb Fire, Michigan, Sept. 5, 1881
  • 282 dead. Hurricane-fire winds; ash from the blaze obscured the sunlight as far away as the Atlantic seaboard.
• Idaho, Montana, Washington, August 1910
  • 87 dead, including 78 firefighters. The outbreak of fires engulfed newly designated national forests in three states.

To contact the reporter on this story: Vincent Del Giudice in Denver at vdelgiudice@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kristy Scheuble at kmckeaney@bloomberg.net, Alex Tanzi