Great Michigan Fire a meteorite. Various aspects of the behaviors of the Chicago and Peshtigo fires attributed to extraterrestrial intervention have more mundane explanations. No external source of ignition was needed; numerous small fires were already burning in the area after a tinder-dry summer and all that was needed to generate the massive blazes in the Midwest were the winds from the front that moved in that evening. Great Michigan Fire The Great Michigan Fire was a series of simultaneous forest fires in the state of Michigan in the United States in 1871. They were possibly caused (or at least reinforced) by the
Port Huron Fire of 1871 erupted in Illinois, and the Peshtigo Fire burned a large tract in Wisconsin, including the city of Peshtigo. Windsor, Ontario met a similar fate four days later. Much of the area burned by the Port Huron Fire was swept by another deadly conflagration 10 years later, under similar conditions. Port Huron Fire of 1871 The Port Huron Fire of Sunday October 8, 1871 (one of a series of fires known collectively as the Great Fire of 1871 or the Great Michigan Fire) burned a number of cities including White Rock and Port Huron, and much of the countryside in the