Advertisement
| biggest fire in us history: Fighting Fire! Michael L. Cooper, 2014-03-04 From colonial times to the modern day, two things have remained constant in American history: the destructive power of fires and the bravery of those who fight them. Fighting Fire! brings to life ten of the deadliest infernos this nation has ever endured: the great fires of Boston, New York, Chicago, Baltimore, and San Francisco, the disasters of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, the General Slocum, and the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, the wildfire of Witch Creek in San Diego County, and the catastrophe of 9/11. Each blaze led to new firefighting techniques and technologies, yet the struggle against fires continues to this day. With historical images and a fast-paced text, this is both an exciting look at firefighting history and a celebration of the human spirit. |
| biggest fire in us history: The Big Burn Timothy Egan, 2009-10-19 National Book Award–winner Timothy Egan turns his historian's eye to the largest-ever forest fire in America and offers an epic, cautionary tale for our time. On the afternoon of August 20, 1910, a battering ram of wind moved through the drought-stricken national forests of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, whipping the hundreds of small blazes burning across the forest floor into a roaring inferno that jumped from treetop to ridge as it raged, destroying towns and timber in the blink of an eye. Forest rangers had assembled nearly ten thousand men to fight the fires, but no living person had seen anything like those flames, and neither the rangers nor anyone else knew how to subdue them. Egan recreates the struggles of the overmatched rangers against the implacable fire with unstoppable dramatic force, and the larger story of outsized president Teddy Roosevelt and his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot, that follows is equally resonant. Pioneering the notion of conservation, Roosevelt and Pinchot did nothing less than create the idea of public land as our national treasure, owned by every citizen. Even as TR's national forests were smoldering they were saved: The heroism shown by his rangers turned public opinion permanently in favor of the forests, though it changed the mission of the forest service in ways we can still witness today. This e-book includes a sample chapter of SHORT NIGHTS OF THE SHADOW CATCHER. |
| biggest fire in us history: Introduction to Water in California David Carle, 2004 Publisher Description |
| biggest fire in us history: Wildfire Statistics , 1978 |
| biggest fire in us history: A Century of Wildland Fire Research National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Division on Earth and Life Studies, Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources, Board on Earth Sciences and Resources, Committee on Increasing Resilience to Wildland Fire: A Century of Wildland Fire Research, 2017-09-30 Although ecosystems, humans, and fire have coexisted for millennia, changes in geology, ecology, hydrology, and climate as well as sociocultural, regulatory, and economic factors have converged to make wildland fire management exceptionally challenging for U.S. federal, state, and local authorities. Given the mounting, unsustainable costs and difficulty translating existing wildland fire science into policy, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine organized a 1-day workshop to focus on how a century of wildland fire research can contribute to improving wildland fire management. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop. |
| biggest fire in us history: Firestorm at Peshtigo Denise Gess, William Lutz, 2003-06 A novelist and historian team up to tell the story of the October 1871 fire in the lumber town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, vividly re-creating the personal and political battles leading to this monumental natural disaster, and delivering it from the lost annals of American history. 16-page insert. 3 maps. |
| biggest fire in us history: The Miramichi Fire Alan MacEachern, 2020-07-23 On 7 October 1825, a massive forest fire swept through northeastern New Brunswick, devastating entire communities. When the smoke cleared, it was estimated that the fire had burned across six thousand square miles, one-fifth of the colony. The Miramichi Fire was the largest wildfire ever to occur within the British Empire, one of the largest in North American history, and the largest along the eastern seaboard. Yet despite the international attention and relief efforts it generated, and the ruin it left behind, the fire all but disappeared from public memory by the twentieth century. A masterwork in historical imagination, The Miramichi Fire vividly reconstructs nineteenth-century Canada's greatest natural disaster, meditating on how it was lost to history. First and foremost an environmental history, the book examines the fire in the context of the changing relationships between humans and nature in colonial British North America and New England, while also exploring social memory and the question of how history becomes established, warped, and forgotten. Alan MacEachern explains how the imprecise and conflicting early reports of the fire's range, along with the quick rebound of the forests and economy of New Brunswick, led commentators to believe by the early 1900s that the fire's destruction had been greatly exaggerated. As an exercise in digital history, this book takes advantage of the proliferation of online tools and sources in the twenty-first century to posit an entirely new reading of the past. Resurrecting one of Canada's most famous and yet unexamined natural disasters, The Miramichi Fire traverses a wide range of historical and scientific literatures to bring a more complete story into the light. |
| biggest fire in us history: Subterranean Fire Sharon Smith, 2018-07-17 “A concise, well-written history of U.S. working-class struggle and radicalism” from the author of Women and Socialism: Class, Race, and Capital (Solidarity). Smith explores how the connection between the U.S. labor movement and the Democratic Party, with its extensive corporate ties, has repeatedly held back working-class struggles. And she closely examines the role of the labor movement in the 2004 presidential election, tracing the shrinking electoral influence of organized labor and the failure of labor-management cooperation, “business unionism,” and reliance on the Democrats to deliver any real gains. “Sharon Smith brings that history to life once again, blasting through the myths of the working class that Trump-era narratives cling to in order to connect us once again to the possibility of building broad solidarity.” —Sarah Jaffe, author of Work Won’t Love You Back “A veteran worker-intellectual brilliantly addresses the crisis of the labor movement, skewering those who believe that renewal can come from the top down, and encouraging those who are fighting to rebuild it from the bottom up.” —Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums |
| biggest fire in us history: America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s Elizabeth Hinton, 2021-05-18 “Not since Angela Davis’s 2003 book, Are Prisons Obsolete?, has a scholar so persuasively challenged our conventional understanding of the criminal legal system.” —Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr., Washington Post From one of our top historians, a groundbreaking story of policing and “riots” that shatters our understanding of the post–civil rights era. What began in spring 2020 as local protests in response to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police quickly exploded into a massive nationwide movement. Millions of mostly young people defiantly flooded into the nation’s streets, demanding an end to police brutality and to the broader, systemic repression of Black people and other people of color. To many observers, the protests appeared to be without precedent in their scale and persistence. Yet, as the acclaimed historian Elizabeth Hinton demonstrates in America on Fire, the events of 2020 had clear precursors—and any attempt to understand our current crisis requires a reckoning with the recent past. Even in the aftermath of Donald Trump, many Americans consider the decades since the civil rights movement in the mid-1960s as a story of progress toward greater inclusiveness and equality. Hinton’s sweeping narrative uncovers an altogether different history, taking us on a troubling journey from Detroit in 1967 and Miami in 1980 to Los Angeles in 1992 and beyond to chart the persistence of structural racism and one of its primary consequences, the so-called urban riot. Hinton offers a critical corrective: the word riot was nothing less than a racist trope applied to events that can only be properly understood as rebellions—explosions of collective resistance to an unequal and violent order. As she suggests, if rebellion and the conditions that precipitated it never disappeared, the optimistic story of a post–Jim Crow United States no longer holds. Black rebellion, America on Fire powerfully illustrates, was born in response to poverty and exclusion, but most immediately in reaction to police violence. In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson launched the “War on Crime,” sending militarized police forces into impoverished Black neighborhoods. Facing increasing surveillance and brutality, residents threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at officers, plundered local businesses, and vandalized exploitative institutions. Hinton draws on exclusive sources to uncover a previously hidden geography of violence in smaller American cities, from York, Pennsylvania, to Cairo, Illinois, to Stockton, California. The central lesson from these eruptions—that police violence invariably leads to community violence—continues to escape policymakers, who respond by further criminalizing entire groups instead of addressing underlying socioeconomic causes. The results are the hugely expanded policing and prison regimes that shape the lives of so many Americans today. Presenting a new framework for understanding our nation’s enduring strife, America on Fire is also a warning: rebellions will surely continue unless police are no longer called on to manage the consequences of dismal conditions beyond their control, and until an oppressive system is finally remade on the principles of justice and equality. |
| biggest fire in us history: The Great Peshtigo Fire Scott Knickelbine, 2012-08-29 On the night of October 8, 1871, a whirlwind of fire swept through northeastern Wisconsin, destroying the bustling frontier town of Peshtigo. Trees, buildings, and people burst into flames. Metal melted. Sand turned into glass. People thought the end of the world had come. When the “tornado of fire” was over, 2,500 people were dead, and Peshtigo was nothing but a smoking ruin. It was the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history. The Great Peshtigo Fire: Stories and Science from America’s Deadliest Firestorm explores the history, science, and legacy of the 1871 Peshtigo Fire at a fourth-grade reading level. Readers will learn about the history of settlement, agriculture, and forestry in 19th-century Wisconsin. This illuminating text covers a diverse range of topics that will enrich the reader’s understanding of the Peshtigo Fire, including the building and land-use practices of the time that made the area ripe for such a fire, the weather patterns that fostered widespread fires throughout the upper Midwest in the summer and fall of 1871, and exciting first-person accounts that vividly bring the `victims’ stories to life. Connections made between the Peshtigo Fire and the history of fire prevention in the United States encourage critical thinking about issues that remain controversial to this day, such as planned burns and housing development restrictions near forested areas. The Great Peshtigo Fire: Stories and Science from America’s Deadliest Firestorm will inform and captivate its readers as it journeys through the horrifying history of the Peshtigo Fire. |
| biggest fire in us history: Triangle David Von Drehle, 2003 Describes the 1911 fire that destroyed the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York's Greenwich Village, the deaths of 146 workers in the fire, and the implications of the catastrophe for twentieth-century politics and labor relations. |
| biggest fire in us history: Large Bells of America Neil Goeppinger, 2016-08-31 Large Bells of America provides a host of information for enthusiasts and collectors, as well as for those interested in bells, and the part played by these American symbols in United States history and our cultural and Christian heritage. Includes a comprehensive directory of foundries and a large number of color photographs and illustrations. |
| biggest fire in us history: Big Top Burning Laura A. Woollett, 2015-06-01 International Literacy Association Award Winner for Intermediate Nonfiction 2016 Eureka Children's Book Honor 2016 On July 6, 1944, thousands of fans made their way to Barbour Street in Hartford, Connecticut, to see the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus performance. Not long after the show's start, a fire broke out and spread rapidly as panicked circus-goers pushed and scrambled to escape. Within 10 minutes the entire big top had burned to the ground, and 167 people never went home. Big Top Burning recounts the true story of one of the worst fire disasters in US history. It follows the tragic stories of the Cook family—including children Donald, Eleanor, and Edward, who were in the audience that day—and 15-year-old Robert Segee, a circus employee with an incendiary past. Drawing on primary sources and interviews with survivors, author Laura Woollett guides readers through several decades of investigations and asks, Wasthe unidentified body of a little girl nicknamedLittle Miss 1565 Eleanor Cook?Was the fire itself an act of arson—anddid Robert Segee set it? Young readers are invited to evaluate the evidence and draw their own conclusions. Combining a gripping disaster story, an ongoing detective and forensics saga, and vivid details about life in World War II–era America, Big Top Burning is sure to intrigue any history or real-life mystery fan. |
| biggest fire in us history: California Burning Katherine Blunt, 2022-08-30 A revelatory, urgent narrative with national implications, exploring the decline of California’s largest utility company that led to countless wildfires — including the one that destroyed the town of Paradise – and the human cost of infrastructure failure Pacific Gas and Electric was a legacy company built by innovators and visionaries, establishing California as a desirable home and economic powerhouse. In California Burning, Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer finalist Katherine Blunt examines how that legacy fell apart—unraveling a long history of deadly failures in which Pacific Gas and Electric endangered millions of Northern Californians, through criminal neglect of its infrastructure. As PG&E prioritized profits and politics, power lines went unchecked—until a rusted hook purchased for 56 cents in 1921 split in two, sparking the deadliest wildfire in California history. Beginning with PG&E’s public reckoning after the Paradise fire, Blunt chronicles the evolution of PG&E’s shareholder base, from innovators who built some of California's first long-distance power lines to aggressive investors keen on reaping dividends. Following key players through pivotal decisions and legal battles, California Burning reveals the forces that shaped the plight of PG&E: deregulation and market-gaming led by Enron Corp., an unyielding push for renewable energy, and a swift increase in wildfire risk throughout the West, while regulators and lawmakers pushed their own agendas. California Burning is a deeply reported, character-driven narrative, the story of a disaster expanding into a much bigger exploration of accountability. It’s an American tragedy that serves as a cautionary tale for utilities across the nation—especially as climate change makes aging infrastructure more vulnerable, with potentially fatal consequences. |
| biggest fire in us history: Beyond Tranquillon Ridge Joseph N. Valencia, 2004 For too long, the details of this tragedy have been shrouded in a fog of secrecy. Beyond Tranquillon Ridge is a story that recounts the firefighting efforts during a frenzied 24- hour period known as the Honda Canyon Fire. It is a history of the strategies and tactics used and it includes many first-hand accounts of the conditions that firefighters and the military faced on the front lines-including the tragic deaths of their comrades. Joseph Valencia offers a brilliant look back; re-creating the sights and sounds of actual firefighting; descriptive overviews of the landscape of South Vandenberg, with rich profiles and command level decisions of the brave men who fought it. In the end, this one day in 1977 stands out as the pivotal time when wind and fire combined into a firestorm and where past compromises affected an outcome. |
| biggest fire in us history: Chicago's Great Fire Carl Smith, 2020-10-06 A definitive chronicle of the 1871 Chicago Fire as remembered by those who experienced it—from the author of Chicago and the American Literary Imagination. Over three days in October, 1871, much of Chicago, Illinois, was destroyed by one of the most legendary urban fires in history. Incorporated as a city in 1837, Chicago had grown at a breathtaking pace in the intervening decades—and much of the hastily-built city was made of wood. Starting in Catherine and Patrick O’Leary’s barn, the Fire quickly grew out of control, twice jumping branches of the Chicago River on its relentless path through the city’s three divisions. While the death toll was miraculously low, nearly a third of Chicago residents were left homeless and more were instantly unemployed. This popular history of the Great Chicago Fire approaches the subject through the memories of those who experienced it. Chicago historian Carl Smith builds the story around memorable characters, both known to history and unknown, including the likes of General Philip Sheridan and Robert Todd Lincoln. Smith chronicles the city’s rapid growth and its place in America’s post-Civil War expansion. The dramatic story of the fire—revealing human nature in all its guises—became one of equally remarkable renewal, as Chicago quickly rose back up from the ashes thanks to local determination and the world’s generosity. As we approach the fire’s 150th anniversary, Carl Smith’s compelling narrative at last gives this epic event its full and proper place in our national chronicle. “The best book ever written about the fire, a work of deep scholarship by Carl Smith that reads with the forceful narrative of a fine novel. It puts the fire and its aftermath in historical, political and social context. It’s a revelatory pleasure to read.” —Chicago Tribune |
| biggest fire in us history: The U.S. Forest Service Harold K. Steen, 2004 The U.S. Forest Service celebrates its centennial in 2005. With a new preface by the author, this edition of Harold K. Steen’s classic history (originally published in 1976) provides a broad perspective on the Service’s administrative and policy controversies and successes. Steen updates the book with discussions of a number of recent concerns, among them the spotted owl issue; wilderness and roadless areas; new research on habitat, biodiversity, and fire prevention; below-cost timber sales; and workplace diversity in a male-oriented field. |
| biggest fire in us history: The Peshtigo Fire of 1871 Captivating History, 2020-05-17 It's likely true that most people picking up this book have never even heard of a place called Peshtigo. This is hardly surprising: this little town on the shores of Lake Michigan is hardly a remarkable place in the modern day. Its residents number less than four thousand, and there's nothing particularly special about it at first glance. |
| biggest fire in us history: Inferno by Committee Tom Ribe, 2010-05-12 “Tom Ribe's clear, scrupulous and thorough account of the Los Alamos/Bandelier fire of 2000 is a white-knuckle narrative, yet meticulously accurate.” —Roger G. Kennedy, Former Director, U.S. National Park Service; Director Emeritus, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution and author of Wildfire and Americans Inferno by Committee tells the story of America’s worst prescribed fire disaster, the Cerro Grande Fire of 2000 which burned 250 homes in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The fire started with a National Park Service prescribed fire that went out of control and ended up burning 42,000 acres of the Santa Fe National Forest. A thorough review of the investigations of the fire and the policy changes that resulted from this seminal event in American fire history are also an integral part of this examination. Prescribing fire on the landscape involves risk. Sometimes, as with the Cerro Grande Fire, the risk taken results in disaster. For land managers, there really is no option but to prescribe fire and take risk—to restore fire to a landscape where fire is native and necessary for the survival of biological systems. Cerro Grande showed us both the consequences of taking a risk with fire and more dramatically, the consequences of avoiding that risk. |
| biggest fire in us history: Killer Show John Barylick, 2012 The definitive book on The Station nightclub fire on the 10th anniversary of the disaster |
| biggest fire in us history: Granite Mountain Brendan McDonough, Stephan Talty, 2015-05-12 The true story behind the events that inspired the major motion picture Only the Brave. A unique and bracing (Booklist) first-person account by the sole survivor of Arizona's disastrous 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire, which took the lives of 19 hotshots -- firefighters trained specifically to battle wildfires. Brendan McDonough was on the verge of becoming a hopeless, inveterate heroin addict when he, for the sake of his young daughter, decided to turn his life around. He enlisted in the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a team of elite firefighters based in Prescott, Arizona. Their leader, Eric Marsh, was in a desperate crunch after four hotshots left the unit, and perhaps seeing a glimmer of promise in the skinny would-be recruit, he took a chance on the unlikely McDonough, and the chance paid off. Despite the crew's skepticism, and thanks in large part to Marsh's firm but loving encouragement, McDonough unlocked a latent drive and dedication, going on to successfully battle a number of blazes and eventually win the confidence of the men he came to call his brothers. Then, on June 30, 2013, while McDonough -- Donut as he'd been dubbed by his team--served as lookout, they confronted a freak, 3,000-degree inferno in nearby Yarnell, Arizona. The relentless firestorm ultimately trapped his hotshot brothers, tragically killing all 19 of them within minutes. Nationwide, it was the greatest loss of firefighter lives since the 9/11 attacks. Granite Mountain is a gripping memoir that traces McDonough's story of finding his way out of the dead end of drugs, finding his purpose among the Granite Mountain Hotshots, and the minute-by-minute account of the fateful day he lost the very men who had saved him. A harrowing and redemptive tale of resilience in the face of tragedy, Granite Mountain is also a powerful reminder of the heroism of the people who put themselves in harm's way to protect us every day. |
| biggest fire in us history: Introduction to Prescribed Fire in Southern Ecosystems Thomas A. Waldrop, Scott L. Goodrick, 2018-03-29 Prescribed burning is an important tool throughout Southern forests, grasslands, and croplands. The need to control fire became evident to allow forests to regenerate. This manual is intended to help resource managers to plan and execute prescribed burns in Southern forests and grasslands. A new appreciation and interest has developed in recent years for using prescribed fire in grasslands, especially hardwood forests, and on steep mountain slopes. Proper planning and execution of prescribed fires are necessary to reduce detrimental effects, such as the impacts on air and downstream water quality. Check out these related products: Trees at Work: Economic Accounting for Forest Ecosystem Services in the U.S. South can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/trees-work-economic-accounting-forest-ecosystem-services-us-south Soil Survey Manual 2017 is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/soil-survey-manual-march-2017 Quantifying the Role of the National Forest System Lands in Providing Surface Drinking Water Supply for the Southern United States is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/quantifying-role-national-forest-system-lands-providing-surface-drinking-water-supply Fire Management Today print subscription is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/fire-management-today Wildland Fire in Ecosystems: Fire and Nonnative Invasive Plants can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/wildland-fire-ecosystems-fire-and-nonnative-invasive-plants |
| biggest fire in us history: When the Mountains Roared United States. Forest Service. Northern Region, 2010 |
| biggest fire in us history: A Concise History of the U.S. Air Force Stephen Lee McFarland, 1997 Except in a few instances, since World War II no American soldier or sailor has been attacked by enemy air power. Conversely, no enemy soldier orsailor has acted in combat without being attacked or at least threatened by American air power. Aviators have brought the air weapon to bear against enemies while denying them the same prerogative. This is the legacy of the U.S. AirForce, purchased at great cost in both human and material resources.More often than not, aerial pioneers had to fight technological ignorance, bureaucratic opposition, public apathy, and disagreement over purpose.Every step in the evolution of air power led into new and untrodden territory, driven by humanitarian impulses; by the search for higher, faster, and farther flight; or by the conviction that the air way was the best way. Warriors have always coveted the high ground. If technology permitted them to reach it, men, women andan air force held and exploited it-from Thomas Selfridge, first among so many who gave that last full measure of devotion; to Women's Airforce Service Pilot Ann Baumgartner, who broke social barriers to become the first Americanwoman to pilot a jet; to Benjamin Davis, who broke racial barriers to become the first African American to command a flying group; to Chuck Yeager, a one-time non-commissioned flight officer who was the first to exceed the speed of sound; to John Levitow, who earned the Medal of Honor by throwing himself over a live flare to save his gunship crew; to John Warden, who began a revolution in air power thought and strategy that was put to spectacular use in the Gulf War.Industrialization has brought total war and air power has brought the means to overfly an enemy's defenses and attack its sources of power directly. Americans have perceived air power from the start as a more efficient means of waging war and as a symbol of the nation's commitment to technology to master challenges, minimize casualties, and defeat adversaries. |
| biggest fire in us history: Under a Flaming Sky Daniel Brown, 2016-02-01 On September 1, 1894 two forest fires converged on the town of Hinckley, Minnesota, trapping over 2,000 people. Daniel J. Brown recounts the events surrounding the fire in the first and only book on to chronicle the dramatic story that unfolded. Whereas Oregon's famous Biscuit fire in 2002 burned 350,000 acres in one week, the Hinckley fire did the same damage in five hours. The fire created its own weather, including hurricane-strength winds, bubbles of plasma-like glowing gas, and 200-foot-tall flames. In some instances, fire whirls, or tornadoes of fire, danced out from the main body of the fire to knock down buildings and carry flaming debris into the sky. Temperatures reached 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit--the melting point of steel. As the fire surrounded the town, two railroads became the only means of escape. Two trains ran the gauntlet of fire. One train caught on fire from one end to the other. The heroic young African-American porter ran up and down the length of the train, reassuring the passengers even as the flames tore at their clothes. On the other train, the engineer refused to back his locomotive out of town until the last possible minute of escape. In all, more than 400 people died, leading to a revolution in forestry management practices and federal agencies that monitor and fight wildfires today. Author Daniel Brown has woven together numerous survivors' stories, historical sources, and interviews with forest fire experts in a gripping narrative that tells the fascinating story of one of North America's most devastating fires and how it changed the nation. |
| biggest fire in us history: The National Forests of the Northern Region , 1993 |
| biggest fire in us history: Introduction to Fire in California David Carle, 2021-08-20 What is fire? How are wildfires ignited? How do California's weather and topography influence fire? How did the California Indians use fire? David Carle focuses on this fundamental element of the natural world, giving a fascinating and concise view of this complex topic. This clearly written, dramatically illustrated book will help Californians, including the millions who live near naturally flammable wildlands, better understand their own place in the state's landscape. Carle covers the basics of fire ecology; looks at the effects of fire on wildlife, soil, water, and air; discusses fire-fighting organizations and land management agencies; explains current policies, and explores many other topics, including the extreme and deadly fire events of 2020 and evidence that climate change is changing the wildfire story in California-- |
| biggest fire in us history: The Good Rain Timothy Egan, 2011-05-18 A fantastic book! Timothy Egan describes his journeys in the Pacific Northwest through visits to salmon fisheries, redwood forests and the manicured English gardens of Vancouver. Here is a blend of history, anthropology and politics. |
| biggest fire in us history: The Hamlet Fire Bryant Simon, 2020-07-23 For decades, the small, quiet town of Hamlet, North Carolina, thrived thanks to the railroad. But by the 1970s, it had become a postindustrial backwater, a magnet for businesses in search of cheap labor and almost no oversight. Imperial Food Products was one of those businesses. The company set up shop in Hamlet in the 1980s. Workers who complained about low pay and hazardous working conditions at the plant were silenced or fired. But jobs were scarce in town, so workers kept coming back, and the company continued to operate with impunity. Then, on the morning of September 3, 1991, the never-inspected chicken-processing plant a stone's throw from Hamlet's city hall burst into flames. Twenty-five people perished that day behind the plant's locked and bolted doors. It remains one of the deadliest accidents ever in the history of the modern American food industry. Eighty years after the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, industrial disasters were supposed to have been a thing of the past in the United States. However, as award-winning historian Bryant Simon shows, the pursuit of cheap food merged with economic decline in small towns across the South and the nation to devalue laborers and create perilous working conditions. The Hamlet fire and its aftermath reveal the social costs of antiunionism, lax regulations, and ongoing racial discrimination. Using oral histories, contemporary news coverage, and state records, Simon has constructed a vivid, potent, and disturbing social autopsy of this town, this factory, and this time that exposes how cheap labor, cheap government, and cheap food came together in a way that was destined to result in tragedy. |
| biggest fire in us history: Tcl/Tk in a Nutshell Paul Raines, Jeff Tranter, 1999-03-25 The Tcl language and Tk graphical toolkit are simple and powerful building blocks for custom applications. The Tcl/Tk combination is increasingly popular because it lets you produce sophisticated graphical interfaces with a few easy commands, develop and change scripts quickly, and conveniently tie together existing utilities or programming libraries.One of the attractive features of Tcl/Tk is the wide variety of commands, many offering a wealth of options. Most of the things you'd like to do have been anticipated by the language's creator, John Ousterhout, or one of the developers of Tcl/Tk's many powerful extensions. Thus, you'll find that a command or option probably exists to provide just what you need.And that's why it's valuable to have a quick reference that briefly describes every command and option in the core Tcl/Tk distribution as well as the most popular extensions. Keep this book on your desk as you write scripts, and you'll be able to find almost instantly the particular option you need.Most chapters consist of alphabetical listings. Since Tk and mega-widget packages break down commands by widget, the chapters on these topics are organized by widget along with a section of core commands where appropriate. Contents include: Core Tcl and Tk commands and Tk widgets C interface (prototypes) Expect [incr Tcl] and [incr Tk] Tix TclX BLT Oratcl, SybTcl, and Tclodbc |
| biggest fire in us history: The Pig Book Citizens Against Government Waste, 2013-09-17 The federal government wastes your tax dollars worse than a drunken sailor on shore leave. The 1984 Grace Commission uncovered that the Department of Defense spent $640 for a toilet seat and $436 for a hammer. Twenty years later things weren't much better. In 2004, Congress spent a record-breaking $22.9 billion dollars of your money on 10,656 of their pork-barrel projects. The war on terror has a lot to do with the record $413 billion in deficit spending, but it's also the result of pork over the last 18 years the likes of: - $50 million for an indoor rain forest in Iowa - $102 million to study screwworms which were long ago eradicated from American soil - $273,000 to combat goth culture in Missouri - $2.2 million to renovate the North Pole (Lucky for Santa!) - $50,000 for a tattoo removal program in California - $1 million for ornamental fish research Funny in some instances and jaw-droppingly stupid and wasteful in others, The Pig Book proves one thing about Capitol Hill: pork is king! |
| biggest fire in us history: History, Uses, and Effects of Fire in the Appalachians David H. Van Lear, 1989 |
| biggest fire in us history: America's Fires Stephen J. Pyne, 2009 America's Fires reviews the historical context of our fire issues and policies that can inform the current and future debate. The forecast makes it imperative that the nation review its policies toward wildland fires and find ways to live with them more intelligently--Provided by publisher. |
| biggest fire in us history: Young Men and Fire Norman MacLean, 2017-05-01 National Book Critics Circle Award Winner: “The terrifying story of the worst disaster in the history of the US Forest Service’s elite Smokejumpers.” —Kirkus Reviews A devastating and lyrical work of nonfiction, Young Men and Fire describes the events of August 5, 1949, when a crew of fifteen of the US Forest Service’s elite airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Two hours after their jump, all but three of the men were dead or mortally burned. Haunted by these deaths for forty years, Norman Maclean puts together the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy in this extraordinary book. Alongside Maclean’s now-canonical A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, Young Men and Fire is recognized today as a classic of the American West. This edition of Maclean’s later triumph—the last book he would write—includes a powerful new foreword by Timothy Egan, author of The Big Burn and The Worst Hard Time. As moving and profound as when it was first published, Young Men and Fire honors the literary legacy of a man who gave voice to an essential corner of the American soul. “A moving account of humanity, nature, and the perseverance of the human spirit.” —Library Journal “Haunting.” —The Wall Street Journal “Engrossing.” —Publishers Weekly |
| biggest fire in us history: The Fires Joe Flood, 2010-05-27 New York City, 1968. The RAND Corporation had presented an alluring proposal to a city on the brink of economic collapse: Using RAND's computer models, which had been successfully implemented in high-level military operations, the city could save millions of dollars by establishing more efficient public services. The RAND boys were the best and brightest, and bore all the sheen of modern American success. New York City, on the other hand, seemed old-fashioned, insular, and corrupt-and the new mayor was eager for outside help, especially something as innovative and infallible as computer modeling. A deal was struck: RAND would begin its first major civilian effort with the FDNY. Over the next decade-a time New York City firefighters would refer to as The War Years-a series of fires swept through the South Bronx, the Lower East Side, Harlem, and Brooklyn, gutting whole neighborhoods, killing more than two thousand people and displacing hundreds of thousands. Conventional wisdom would blame arson, but these fires were the result of something altogether different: the intentional withdrawal of fire protection from the city's poorest neighborhoods-all based on RAND's computer modeling systems. Despite the disastrous consequences, New York City in the 1970s set the template for how a modern city functions-both literally, as RAND sold its computer models to cities across the country, and systematically, as a new wave of technocratic decision-making took hold, which persists to this day. In The Fires, Joe Flood provides an X-ray of these inner workings, using the dramatic story of a pair of mayors, an ambitious fire commissioner, and an even more ambitious think tank to illuminate the patterns and formulas that are now inextricably woven into the very fabric of contemporary urban life. The Fires is a must read for anyone curious about how a modern city works. |
| biggest fire in us history: The Circus Fire Stewart O'Nan, 2008-12-10 The acclaimed author of Emily, Alone and Henry, Himself brings all his narrative gifts to bear on this gripping account of tragedy and heroism—the great Hartford circus fire of 1944. It was a midsummer afternoon, halfway through a Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus performance, when the big top caught fire. The tent had been waterproofed with a mixture of paraffin and gasoline; in seconds it was burning out of control. More than 8,000 people were trapped inside, and the ensuing disaster would eventually take 167 lives. Steward O'Nan brings all his narrative gifts to bear on this gripping account of the great Hartford circus fire of 1944. Drawing on interviews with hundreds of survivors, O'Nan skillfully re-creates the horrific events and illuminates the psychological oddities of human behavior under stress: the mad scramble for the exits; the perilous effort to maneuver animals out of danger; the hero who tossed dozens of children to safety before being trampled to death. Brilliantly constructed and exceptionally moving, The Circus Fire is history at its most compelling. |
| biggest fire in us history: The Library Book Susan Orlean, 2019-10-01 Susan Orlean’s bestseller and New York Times Notable Book is “a sheer delight…as rich in insight and as varied as the treasures contained on the shelves in any local library” (USA TODAY)—a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries. “Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book” (The Washington Post). On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who? Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a “delightful…reflection on the past, present, and future of libraries in America” (New York magazine) that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before. In the “exquisitely written, consistently entertaining” (The New York Times) The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries; brings each department of the library to vivid life; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago. “A book lover’s dream…an ambitiously researched, elegantly written book that serves as a portal into a place of history, drama, culture, and stories” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country. |
| biggest fire in us history: Fire Stephen J. Pyne, 2019-08-12 Over vast expanses of time, fire and humanity have interacted to expand the domain of each, transforming the earth and what it means to be human. In this concise yet wide-ranging book, Stephen J. Pyne—named by Science magazine as “the world’s leading authority on the history of fire”—explores the surprising dynamics of fire before humans, fire and human origins, aboriginal economies of hunting and foraging, agricultural and pastoral uses of fire, fire ceremonies, fire as an idea and a technology, and industrial fire. In this revised and expanded edition, Pyne looks to the future of fire as a constant, defining presence on Earth. A new chapter explores the importance of fire in the twenty-first century, with special attention to its role in the Anthropocene, or what he posits might equally be called the Pyrocene. |
| biggest fire in us history: Burn Boston Burn Wayne Miller, 2019-08-16 |
| biggest fire in us history: The Peshtigo Fire of 1871 Charles River Editors, 2014-08-20 *Includes pictures *Includes witness accounts of the fire *Includes a bibliography for further reading Why is this story not known? You see endless stories about Johnstown. What happened at Peshtigo makes Johnstown look like a birdbath. - Bill Lutz, co-author of Firestorm at Peshtigo The air burned hotter than a crematorium and the fire traveled at 90 mph. I read an account of a Civil War veteran who had been through some of the worst battles of the war. He described the sound - the roar - during the fire as 100 times greater than any artillery bombardment. - Bill Lutz In arguably the most famous fire in American history, a blaze in the southwestern section of Chicago began to burn out of control on the night of October 8, 1871. It had taken about 40 years for Chicago to grow from a small settlement of about 300 people into a thriving metropolis with a population of 300,000, but in just two days in 1871, much of that progress was burned to the ground. Due to the publicity generated by a fire that reduced most of a major American city to ash, the Peshtigo Fire of 1871 might fairly be called America's forgotten disaster. Overshadowed by the much better covered and publicized Great Chicago Fire that occurred on the same evening, the fire that started in the Wisconsin logging town of Peshtigo generated a firestorm unlike anything in American history. In addition to destroying a wide swath of land, it killed at least 1,500 people and possibly as many as 2,500, several times more than the number of casualties in Chicago. While people marveled at the fact that the Great Chicago Fire managed to jump a river, the Peshtigo fire was so intense that it was able to jump several miles across Green Bay. While wondering aloud about the way in which the Peshtigo fire has been overlooked, Bill Lutz noted, Fires are normally very fascinating to people, but people seem resistant to Peshtigo. Maybe Peshtigo is on such a large scale that people can't comprehend it. Ironically, while Peshtigo is widely forgotten, the fire there is often cited as proof that the Great Chicago Fire was caused by natural phenomena, such as a comet or meteor shower. Those advocating such a theory think it's too coincidental that such disastrous fires were sparked in the same region on the same night, and they point to other fires across the Midwest. Of course, as with the Great Chicago Fire, contemporaries of the Peshtigo fire faulted human error and didn't necessarily link the two fires, if only because fires were a common problem in both Peshtigo and Chicago during the 19th century. The Peshtigo Fire of 1871 chronicles the story America's deadliest fire. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Peshtigo fire like never before, in no time at all. |
A Look at Wildland Fire in North America in the 21st Century
Great Hinckley fire of 1984 consumed 200,000 acres and 418 lives (Williams et al. 2013) and the Great Fire of 1910 was the single greatest fire in US history, consuming 3 million acres across …
Wildland Fires: A Historical Perspective - FEMA
Natural wildland fires are generally caused by lightning, which strikes the earth an average of 100 times each second or 3 billion times every year1 and has caused some of the most notable …
Microsoft Word - NFPA Deadly Fires Handout.rtf - I Dig …
1845 The Theatre in Canton, China (killed 1,670); largest single building fire ever. 1860 Elm Street Tenement in New York City (killed 200); fire in a 6-story building resulted in a requirement for …
THE GREAT FIRES OF OCTOBER 1871 - glenallenweather.com
But for sheer destructiveness and loss of life, the great fires raging on the weekend of October 8- 9, 1871 will go down in US history as its greatest fire disaster. On October 8, major fires broke …
The Station Fire: An Example of a Large Wildfire in the …
The Station Fire was a prime example of a fuel and lowidity driven fire, relative hum with much of the fire growth occurring in the absence of significant winds. With several years of limited …
The Biggest Back-Fire in History - Anna von Reitz
The Biggest Back-Fire in History By Anna Von Reitz THEY, the Territorial United States, planned to vacate the Constitutions -- all three of them. THEY had already moth-balled and usurped …
Texas battling largest wildfire in its history - Phys.org
Texas emergency crews were struggling Thursday to contain the largest wildfire in the US state's history, with the blaze killing at least two people and scorching a million acres as it...
The fastest-growing and most destructive fires in the US
Using satellite data, we analyzed the daily growth rates of more than 60,000 fires from 2001 to 2020 across the contiguous US. Nearly half of the ecoregions experienced destructive fast fires …
The History of Wildland Firefighting - National Interagency …
Wildfire is an element of nature that humans have had a relationship with for millions of years. When Europeans arrived in North America, they sought to exclude fire from the forest …
The Winecoff Hotel Fire, which is the deadliest hotel fire in the ...
The Winecoff Hotel Fire, which is the deadliest hotel fire in the United States, occurred on December 7, 1946, and was given a historical marker by the Georgia Department of Natural …
Major Fires in SLO County - HISTORY CENTER OF SAN LUIS …
In this newsletter, we are going to highlight three major fires from our county's history, from 1886, 1926, and 1985. The Andrews Hotel April 18, 1886 When the Andrews Hotel was opened to the …
Major fires in San Diego County history
September 26-Oct. 3 1970: The Laguna fire, the county's largest fire in modern times, burned 175,425 acres, killed eight people and destroyed 382 homes. In 24 hours the fire burned from …
The Age of Western Wildfires - NW Fire Science
Feb 14, 2012 · Using USFS records of wildfires greater than 1,000 acres in size from 1970-2011,1 we calculated changes in the annual number of fires and the total area burned in 11 Western …
Science Findings - Issue #247 - April 2022 - US Forest Service
Five years later, the August Complex in Mendocino National Forest torched more than a million acres and destroyed 935 buildings. The August Complex—a conglomeration of 37 sep-arate …
The History of Fire in the Southern United States - Human …
Archae-ological and ethnohistorical information reveal general pat-terns in fire use during the five major cultural periods in the South; these are Native American prehistory, early European …
Assessment of Summer 2000 Wildfires - Pacific Bio
The Valley/Skalkaho Fire Complex, in the Bitterroot National Forest, Montana, is the largest fire complex currently burning in the United States. These fires started in a roaded landscape …
Return of Conflagration to the Built Environment - IBHS
Many of the most catastrophic wildfires in United States history share a common thread: fire spread from the wildlands into the WUI and suburban environment. Structural conflagration is …
Top 20 Largest California Wildfires - TemplateLab
*There is no doubt that there were fires with significant acreage burned in years prior to 1932, but those records are less reliable, and this list is meant to give an overview of the large fires in …
California fire rapidly reaches state's top 10 biggest ever
The so-called Park Fire burned more than 350,000 acres (142,000 hectares) as of Saturday evening, making it the seventh-largest ever recorded in California history, the state agency Cal...
Firebreak - Forest History Society
On 7 October 1825, a massive wildfire swept across the colony of New Brunswick in British North America, destroying communities along the Miramichi River and killing at least 160 people. …
A Look at Wildland Fire in North America in the 21st Century
Great Hinckley fire of 1984 consumed 200,000 acres and 418 lives (Williams et al. 2013) and the Great Fire of 1910 was the single greatest fire in US history, consuming 3 million acres across …
Wildland Fires: A Historical Perspective - FEMA
Natural wildland fires are generally caused by lightning, which strikes the earth an average of 100 times each second or 3 billion times every year1 and has caused some of the most notable …
Microsoft Word - NFPA Deadly Fires Handout.rtf - I Dig …
1845 The Theatre in Canton, China (killed 1,670); largest single building fire ever. 1860 Elm Street Tenement in New York City (killed 200); fire in a 6-story building resulted in a …
THE GREAT FIRES OF OCTOBER 1871 - glenallenweather.com
But for sheer destructiveness and loss of life, the great fires raging on the weekend of October 8- 9, 1871 will go down in US history as its greatest fire disaster. On October 8, major fires broke …
The Station Fire: An Example of a Large Wildfire in the …
The Station Fire was a prime example of a fuel and lowidity driven fire, relative hum with much of the fire growth occurring in the absence of significant winds. With several years of limited …
The Biggest Back-Fire in History - Anna von Reitz
The Biggest Back-Fire in History By Anna Von Reitz THEY, the Territorial United States, planned to vacate the Constitutions -- all three of them. THEY had already moth-balled and usurped …
Texas battling largest wildfire in its history - Phys.org
Texas emergency crews were struggling Thursday to contain the largest wildfire in the US state's history, with the blaze killing at least two people and scorching a million acres as it...
The fastest-growing and most destructive fires in the US
Using satellite data, we analyzed the daily growth rates of more than 60,000 fires from 2001 to 2020 across the contiguous US. Nearly half of the ecoregions experienced destructive fast …
The History of Wildland Firefighting - National Interagency …
Wildfire is an element of nature that humans have had a relationship with for millions of years. When Europeans arrived in North America, they sought to exclude fire from the forest …
The Winecoff Hotel Fire, which is the deadliest hotel fire in …
The Winecoff Hotel Fire, which is the deadliest hotel fire in the United States, occurred on December 7, 1946, and was given a historical marker by the Georgia Department of Natural …
Major Fires in SLO County - HISTORY CENTER OF SAN LUIS …
In this newsletter, we are going to highlight three major fires from our county's history, from 1886, 1926, and 1985. The Andrews Hotel April 18, 1886 When the Andrews Hotel was opened to …
Major fires in San Diego County history
September 26-Oct. 3 1970: The Laguna fire, the county's largest fire in modern times, burned 175,425 acres, killed eight people and destroyed 382 homes. In 24 hours the fire burned from …
The Age of Western Wildfires - NW Fire Science
Feb 14, 2012 · Using USFS records of wildfires greater than 1,000 acres in size from 1970-2011,1 we calculated changes in the annual number of fires and the total area burned in 11 Western …
Science Findings - Issue #247 - April 2022 - US Forest Service
Five years later, the August Complex in Mendocino National Forest torched more than a million acres and destroyed 935 buildings. The August Complex—a conglomeration of 37 sep-arate …
The History of Fire in the Southern United States - Human …
Archae-ological and ethnohistorical information reveal general pat-terns in fire use during the five major cultural periods in the South; these are Native American prehistory, early European …
Assessment of Summer 2000 Wildfires - Pacific Bio
The Valley/Skalkaho Fire Complex, in the Bitterroot National Forest, Montana, is the largest fire complex currently burning in the United States. These fires started in a roaded landscape …
Return of Conflagration to the Built Environment - IBHS
Many of the most catastrophic wildfires in United States history share a common thread: fire spread from the wildlands into the WUI and suburban environment. Structural conflagration is …
Top 20 Largest California Wildfires - TemplateLab
*There is no doubt that there were fires with significant acreage burned in years prior to 1932, but those records are less reliable, and this list is meant to give an overview of the large fires in …
California fire rapidly reaches state's top 10 biggest ever
The so-called Park Fire burned more than 350,000 acres (142,000 hectares) as of Saturday evening, making it the seventh-largest ever recorded in California history, the state agency Cal...
Firebreak - Forest History Society
On 7 October 1825, a massive wildfire swept across the colony of New Brunswick in British North America, destroying communities along the Miramichi River and killing at least 160 people. …
