Michelle Gibson brings forward what she discovered when researching the Great Lakes Region about the six Great Fires in our historical narrative that took place on October 8th and 9th of 1871 given what’s in the recent news regarding the fires on the same day of October 17th of 2026 at CFB Wainwright in Alberta, Camp Pendleton in California, and the burning of the historic city hall in Limoges, France. I also brought forward other relatively recent catastrophic fires in California and Hawaii for comparison as well.
The best-known fire was the Great Chicago Fire which started on October 8th of 1871, but there were several others that took place in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan that altogether claimed thousands of lives and devastated millions of acres.