Analysis of the Impact Theory
(continued from previous page)
A
more earthly cause is also the more likely. It was convection
whirls, flinging flaming brands hundreds of feet ahead of the
fire, which surely led to Williams's short-lived optimism. The
fire marshal said as much in a letter to the Chicago Tribune
published on November 17, 1871: "While we were working on
the original fire, which was surrounded and under our control,
the fearful gale which was raging at the time carried, not only
sparks, but brands and pieces of boards on fire, the distance of
two to four squares."
Even
Waskin's theories concerning the Wisconsin fires appear to be
unsound. He notes that during the Peshtigo blaze, a rain of
red-hot sand accompanied the firestorm. Where, asks Waskin, did
this sand come from? Although there was sand on the beaches, he
maintains that these lay to the East, and the wind was blowing
from the West and the South. He concludes that the sand may have
come from a comet, as sand is one of its elements. But Waskin
fails to note that beaches were not the only source of sand in
Peshtigo, that at least some of the roads were apparently
covered with it. He also fails to consider the power of
convection whirls. Stephen J. Pyne, author of the cultural
history Fire in America, vividly describes them: "The
turbulence from the violent convection was awesome. Winds of
60-80 mph uprooted trees like match sticks; a 1,000 pound wagon
was tossed like a tumbleweed. Papers were lofted by the winds
from Michigan across Lake Huron to Canada. The peculiar physics
of mass fire had multiplied its fury into a maelstrom of energy
equivalent to the chain reaction of a thermonuclear bomb."
The winds that could lift a wagon and uproot trees surely sucked
up both beach and road sand into a hurricane of fire and hurled
it upon the fleeing populace.
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