List of Michigan wildfires

The U.S. state of Michigan has been the site of several major wildfires. The worst of these were in the lumbering era of the late-1800s when lumbering practices permitted the buildup of large slash piles and altered forest growth patterns which may have contributed to size of the wildfires. The scattered nature of settlements, lumber camps and Indian tribes during this time lead to large uncertainties in determining the number of deaths and property losses. More recent fires have been much smaller and contained by modern firefighting methods with better records of the destruction they caused. Almost all of the thousands of yearly fires in the state are only a few acres, although 100-200 homes are damaged each year by these small fires.[1]

FireDateLocationSize (acres)Size (kmĀ²)DamageDeathsNotes
Great Michigan FiresOctober 8, 1871multiple locationsover 1,500,000over 6,000thousandshundredsfires across Wisconsin, Michigan, and the cities of Holland, Manistee and Chicago
Port Huron Fire of 1871October 8, 1871The Thumb1,200,0004,850thousands50+same day as Great Michigan fire
Peshtigo FireOctober 8, 1871Menominee County, Michiganhundreds of thousandshundredsthousandsdozens[2]same day as The Great Chicago fire
Thumb FireSeptember 5, 1881The Thumb1,000,0004,000over 2,000 structures282
Metz FireOctober 15, 1908Metz300,0001,200hundreds of structures37[3]15 deaths occurred when the rescue train derailed in a burning lumber siding
Ontonagon FireAugust 1896Ontanogan228,000923hundreds1[4]
Seney FireAugust - October, 1976Seney National Wildlife Refuge78,00031600burned for months underground in peat
Ishpeming fireOctober 1896Ishpeming64,000259unknownunknown[5]
Mack Lake fireMay 5, 1980Mio25,00010144 homes1[6]
Duck Lake fireMay-June 2012Luce County21,00085136 structures0
Sleeper Lake FireAugust, 2007Luce County18,0007300
Au Sable-Oscoda FireJuly 11, 1911Iosco Countythousandsdozenshundreds5+Acreage burned unclear because of numerous fires burning the area that year[7]
The Meridian Boundary Fire in 2010 burned 8,586 acres near Grayling, Michigan in 2010.
Oscoda Fire of 1945

See also

  •  Michigan portal

References

  1. Wildfires and Firewise, Michigan State University, 02/03/2012
  2. 21 dead listed by name from Birch Creek, near Menominee, JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Session, 1873, MADISON, WIS.
  3. Metz Remembers, The Alpena News, Mike Modrzynski, October 12, 2008
  4. The Forests of Michigan, Donald I. Dickmann, Larry A. Leefers, University of Michigan Press, 2003, p. 164
  5. The Forests of Michigan, Donald I. Dickmann, Larry A. Leefers, University of Michigan Press, 2003, p. 165
  6. Wildfire History, Michigan State University, 10/17/2011, accessed July 14, 2012
  7. The Forests of Michigan, Donald I. Dickmann, Larry A. Leefers, University of Michigan Press, 2003, p. 168
  • Hanines, D. A.; Sando, R. W. (1969), Climatic Conditions Preceding Historically Great Fires in the North Central Region (PDF), U.S.D.A. Forest Service Research Paper NC-34; see Figure 1.
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