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Your Mission!
Disasters, mysteries, disappearances, narrow escapes, and tales of survival. Experience some of the world’s biggest catastrophes like never before. In this book, you get to play disaster detective!
You have access to the Danger Files, full of critical details about each event. You can dig through eyewitness accounts and fact files, conduct experiments, and follow the clues. Can you predict disaster before it happens? Can you figure out what is going wrong and why? Put your detective hat on—your investigation starts now!
Chapter 1: The Great Chicago Fire
FACT FILE:
Chicago, Illinois
Founded: 1833
Population in 1871: 300,000 (fourth largest US city)
Nickname: The Gem of the Prairie
Location: Shores of Lake Michigan and the Chicago River
Chicago, Illinois
October 1—8, 1871
Chicago’s firefighters were exhausted. Fire after fire. Grueling day after grueling day. They fought thick smoke and hot flames until their lungs ached with every tired, smoke-filled breath. There was no time to rest, as the alarm bell rang out nearly every hour with yet another blaze.
Fire needs three things to burn: fuel, heat, and oxygen. Fuel can be a liquid, a solid, or a gas. Examples include: wood, natural gas, coal, hay, paper, and much more. Types of heat: warm weather, sunlight, electricity, sparks, and friction. Oxygen: it’s in the air all around us. In this case, Chicago had it all: plenty of fuel, warm weather, and strong, steady winds. The danger of fire was very high.
Everything was impossibly dry. It hadn’t rained in months. And the long searing summer dragged on––into a hot autumn. Even the constantly blowing wind was warm. Chicago was normally muddy, wet, and much cooler in October. But now even creek beds evaporated into dusty ribbons of sand. The city’s wooden buildings baked in the warm weather.
The firefighters were exhausted, but they had no idea that the fiercest fire of all was yet to come.
Chicago’s usually muddy terrain made it a difficult city to get around in. That’s why the city built 600 miles (966 kilometers) of raised wooden sidewalks and 55 miles (86 kilometers) of streets constructed out of pine planks.
Sunday, October 8, 1871
7:00 p.m.
EYEWITNESS:
Name: Robert A. Williams
Born: June 25, 1827
Age: 44
Job: Chief fire marshal, City of Chicago
Uniform: Leather helmet; leather boots; coat, pants, and blazer made from thick wool,
which is fire-resistant
Fire Chief Robert Williams was dead tired after sixteen hours of battling a fire at one of the city’s lumber mills. The raging fire turned four city blocks into ruins. Finally, it was out and the chief could go home to get some sleep. Wearily, he hoisted one leg and then another into a horse-drawn wagon that would take him home.
The fire chief and his crew were worn out. Fatigue can make it a lot harder to carry out the strenuous tasks required to fight a fire. It also decreases a person’s ability to make good decisions.
“We are going to have a burn,” the worried chief said to his driver. “I feel it in my bones.”
Even though he was worried about the night ahead, this was Chief Williams’s chance to rest. Sinking into the mattress, he closed his reddened eyes and fell asleep.
FACT FILE
The O’Leary Residence
Address: 137 De Koven Street
Description: Wooden house with separate barn
8:15 p.m.
In a Chicago neighborhood filled with Irish immigrants, Catherine O’Leary was settling in for the night. The cows had been milked, and the horse had been fed with a fresh supply of hay. Catherine and her husband, Patrick, tucked their five children into bed.
They had a lot to be thankful for. They had moved to the United States from Ireland for a better life. And things were going well. Not only did they own their house, it was also big enough to have a renter. In addition to rental money, Catherine sold the cows’ milk and delivered it to her customers. Patrick earned what he could as a laborer. They were working toward a better future for their kids.
Soon enough, both parents fell asleep.
Ready for winter, the O’Learys’ barn was filled with two tons (1.8 metric tons) of coal and two tons (1.8 metric tons) of hay. That’s enough fuel to feed an intense fire.
8:35 p.m.
Just moments after the O’Learys settled into a deep slumber—horror! Black smoke gushed out of their barn. Neighbor and family friend Dan Sullivan saw it first. According to his testimony later, he rushed to the barn and yanked open the doors. The hayloft was engulfed in flames. He yelled for help and tried to save the O’Learys’ animals. Another neighbor heard his cries and raced toward the O’Learys’ house.
Catherine and Patrick woke up to panicked screams.
“Fire! Fire! Fire!”
FACT FILE
Reporting a Fire: Street Call Boxes
Street call boxes, located throughout the city, were considered state-of-the-art technology. When a city resident pulled a lever in the box, a telegraph message, automatically including the location of the box, was sent via wires to the fire department, alerting them to the fire.
With the neighbors’ help, the O’Learys worked to keep their house from catching fire. Friends picked up the furniture and carried it to safety. Neighbors filled buckets and tubs with water from fire hydrants to pour onto the O’Learys’ house. The O’Leary children were moved to safety. The barn could not be saved: only a single calf escaped before the structure burned to the ground.
Irish immigrants built the O’Learys’ crowded neighborhood. The lots were small. The houses were close together. They were constructed of wood-the cheapest building material. As we know, wood burns easily. When wooden houses are built so closely together, it is easy for fire to spread, especially in windy conditions. All it takes is an ember from one house to land on the roof of the house next door.
Downtown, high atop the courthouse tower, a fire watchman looked through a spyglass. His job? To alert the fire department at the first sign of fire. After scanning the horizon, he spotted smoke rising from the O’Learys’ barn. But he wasn’t worried because he figured the smoke was from the fire at the lumber mill. He knew that even though the flames were out, it was still smoldering.
A neighbor of the O’Learys ran to the closest street call box and asked the storekeeper in charge of it to pull the alarm. It is unclear if that alarm was actually activated. It would have automatically sent the fire’s location to the fire department. But many people were unsure about how to operate the boxes, including how to tell if their message even went through.
