Chicago Fire Research Paper

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was a tragic event that impacted many people at the time. The fire raged through the city of Chicago, Illinois from October 8th to October 10th, destroying 3.3 square miles of downtown Chicago. While the fire was devastating, it laid the groundwork for rebuilding a stronger Chicago.

Before the fire broke out on Sunday night, October 8, 1871 there had been a large drought causing everything to be dry and extremely flammable. Many fires had been breaking out in Chicago. Records show that in 1870 the fire

To begin with, after the fire of 1871, Chicago became a dense population, area and the value of the state lived up. By 1890, Chicago had more than one million people and had surpassed Philadelphia population and became second-biggest city in the United States (Lowe 1). People started to travel over to Chicago and started to settle there. The more people traveling to Chicago meant that they would have to build more buildings both commercial and property. The problem was that Chicago stood in a deluge, and then it was hard to build homes using the techniques they knew. They knew how to build structures using the traditional walls of brick and stone, but was not capable to stay up

On the afternoon of March 25, 1911, a fire broke out in the 10-floor Asch Building, a block east of Manhattan's Washington Square. This is where 500 mostly young immigrant girls were producing shirts for the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. Within minutes, it spread to consume the building's upper three stories. Firemen at the scene were unable to rescue those trapped inside: their ladders weren't tall enough. Exits were locked, and the narrow fire escapes were inadequate. Panicked, many jumped from the windows to their deaths. People on the street watched in horror. The flames were under control in less than a half hour, but 146 people perished, 123 of them women. It was the worst disaster in the city's history.

   The fire was supposedly caused by Catherine O'Leary's cow who kicked over a lantern, however this is just legend and can't be proven as the actual start of the fire. The fire burned out of control due to the windy quality of the city and possibly even the dry weather. Another contributing factor is that the fire department was sent to the wrong location, which caused them to arrived at the fire later then they should have. The Fire began on the night of October 8th and was finally put out on the 10th. The fire was extinguished by the firefighters, but was also put out due the rain that fell that day. As you can see the fire was very uncontrollable, lasted for a long period of time, and would cause severe damage to the city.

Did you know that the Chicago Fire burned 3.3 square miles and left more than 100,000 people homeless and killed more than 300 people. The Chicago Fire started on October 8, 1871, by a cow that kicked over a lantern into dry grass and started a barn fire, which spread quickly throughout the city . The firemen had a large effect putting out the Great Chicago Fire.

On October 8,1871 according to Jim murphy`s research in his book “The great fire”Chicago Illinois was a city ready to burn.No one expected this to happen in Chicago.

The Great Chicago Fire started when a cow kicked over a lantern in the barn owned by Patrick and Catherine O'Leary. It then spread throughout the barn and into the city of Chicago.On the first night of the fire, strong southwesterly winds fanned the flames high into the sky and created convection spirals, or "fire devils." Fire devils spit burning debris in all directions, causing more buildings to burn.

The theory is that a women by the name of Mrs. O’Leary was milking her cow when the cow kicked a lantern that was used to light up the barn. What they think happened is that the fire got out of hand, before the firefighters got there. It spread so fast from the dry and humid weather. What didn’t help the fact is that the whole city was made out of wood. The city only had one water supply and the city was full of oil.

No one knows how the fire was started to this day, but all we know is that it paved the path for the new, more modern Chicago. From this tragic event, we learned how to prevent large fires like the one that burned Chicago to the ground. This tragedy sparked the flame that lead Chicago to be better and more suitable for the residence of this

The Great Fire happened on September 2, 1666 in Europe. A baker to the King failed to completely extinguish the flames in his oven before he went to sleep for the night. The baker, Thomas Farrinor, and his family woke up in the early hours of the morning to smoke in their home from a fire downstairs. His wife, daughter, one of their servants, and he managed to escape the fire through a window. The fire destroyed most of the city before it was finally extinguished.

Chicago had an extremely dry season leading up to the fire causing very ignitable conditions. In 1871, the Chicago Fire Department had 185 firefighters and 17 horse-drawn steam engines in the entire city. The fire department responded quickly. However, Matthias Schaffer, the watchman on duty, sent the firefighters to the wrong place, allowing the fire to grow rapidly.

The great fire of London was one of the most destructive fires in history, destroying more

n October 8,1871, a cow was getting milked in a barn they used gas lamps in the barn because it was dark the cow got startled and knocked over and set the barn on fire. The fire start at 9:00pm the fire finally ended on Sunday evening the cause of this gigantic fire was the cow.

It was a Sunday morning on October 8, 1871 this is one day that will go down in history as THE GREAT FIRE. Alarms weren’t triggered, they had horrible equipment, and the conditions were terrible. For these reasons the fire was not put out and continued to raging on for a total of 31 hours. And these are just some of the reasons of the reasons that the Chicago fire department couldn’t put it out and how everything went wrong.