Just ran across a pic I took of an article from our paper earlier this summer but forgot to share.
I was pretty surprised to see that none of the deadliest wildfires were in the west.
I grew up in the area of the Cloquet/1918 fire and family had been in the area since 1890s. My grandmother was 17 yrs old and her 6 younger siblings and mother were killed in the fire. Then the following winter her father was killed in the flu pandemic.
A few recent articles that were done around the 100 yr anniversary:
One hundred years ago, Oct. 12, 1918, a convergence of forest fires burned a swath of Minnesota half the size of Rhode Island's land mass, and left hundreds dead.
October 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the worst natural disaster in Minnesota’s history. Starting as mere sparks in northern Minnesota, the Cloquet-Duluth and Moose Lake Fires of 1918 ultimately killed more than 450 people and caused $25 million in damage — the equivalent of $400 million in 20