Did Biela's Comet Cause The Great Chicago Fire? (1871)

[marhawkman]

(NOTE: This line of discussion was spun off from the Tunguska thread.)

The wildest, but still plausible suggested cause, is that it's actually the same type of event that caused the Great Chicago Fire.

On that hot, dry, and windy autumn day, three other major fires occurred along the shores of Lake Michigan at the same time as the Great Chicago Fire. Some 250 miles (400 km) to the north, the Peshtigo Fire consumed the town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, along with a dozen other villages. It killed 1,200 to 2,500 people and charred approximately 1.5 million acres (6,000 km²). The Peshtigo Fire remains the deadliest in American history[49] but the remoteness of the region meant it was little noticed at the time, due to the fact that one of the first things that burned were the telegraph lines to Green Bay.[50]

Across the lake to the east, the town of Holland, Michigan, and other nearby areas burned to the ground.[51] Some 100 miles (160 km) to the north of Holland, the lumbering community of Manistee also went up in flames[52] in what became known as the Great Michigan Fire.[51]

Farther east, along the shore of Lake Huron, the Port Huron Fire swept through Port Huron, Michigan and much of Michigan's "Thumb". On October 9, 1871, a fire swept through the city of Urbana, Illinois, 140 miles (230 km) south of Chicago, destroying portions of its downtown area.[53] Windsor, Ontario, likewise burned on October 12.[54]

One suggestion is that it was a shower of smaller bolides as the Earth absorbed the fragments of a comet.... people even identified it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biela's_Comet
A bit of corroborating evidence is that allegedly a blast ring was found in one of the forest fire areas. This being an area where trees are knocked over and point outwards in a circle, with a few trees standing in the middle.

1871 would have been shortly after the comet was believed to have broken apart in 1852. But there's a major problem. For this to be pieces of Biela's comet it would have needed to shift orbit slightly, as the orbit was calculated at 6.6 years, and this was 5.6 years after it's calculated previous orbit would have been. However some think Biela's comet may have fractured as early as 1842. 1845 was the last proper appearance of the comet and it had a shape indicative of a cloud of debris. is 29 years enough for pieces to shift orbit that much? hard to say. this aspect of astronomy is not one people have had much opportunity to study.

One interesting point in this discussion.... This theory is believed to have gotten started by Ignatius L. Donnelly in 1883. Yeah a decade after Biela's comet was confirmed to have turned into a cloud of space shrapnel. And astronomers were puzzled because the estimated mass of the remaining space shrapnel was much less than the estimated mass of Biela's comet.

Tunguska was probably not Biela's comet though. 1908 is almost 40 years later. But a different comet? maybe.

 

[DougalLongfoot]

The wildest, but still plausible suggested cause, is that it's actually the same type of event that caused the Great Chicago Fire.
One suggestion is that it was a shower of smaller bolides as the Earth absorbed the fragments of a comet.... people even identified it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biela's_Comet
A bit of corroborating evidence is that allegedly a blast ring was found in one of the forest fire areas. This being an area where trees are knocked over and point outwards in a circle, with a few trees standing in the middle.

1871 would have been shortly after the comet was believed to have broken apart in 1852. But there's a major problem. For this to be pieces of Biela's comet it would have needed to shift orbit slightly, as the orbit was calculated at 6.6 years, and this was 5.6 years after it's calculated previous orbit would have been. However some think Biela's comet may have fractured as early as 1842. 1845 was the last proper appearance of the comet and it had a shape indicative of a cloud of debris. is 29 years enough for pieces to shift orbit that much? hard to say. this aspect of astronomy is not one people have had much opportunity to study.

One interesting point in this discussion.... This theory is believed to have gotten started by Ignatius L. Donnelly in 1883. Yeah a decade after Biela's comet was confirmed to have turned into a cloud of space shrapnel. And astronomers were puzzled because the estimated mass of the remaining space shrapnel was much less than the estimated mass of Biela's comet.

Tunguska was probably not Biela's comet though. 1908 is almost 40 years later. But a different comet? maybe.

Sorry, just to clarify, are you saying that the Great Chicago fire was caused by a comet? Or are you saying the Tunguska Event was simply a large bushfire?

 

[marhawkman]

Sorry, just to clarify, are you saying that the Great Chicago fire was caused by a comet? Or are you saying the Tunguska Event was simply a large bushfire?

That both were caused by comets.

 

[EnolaGaia]

This 2004 conference paper is usually cited as the key source in resurrecting Donnelly's speculations about a comet igniting the Midwest fires that day (of which the Great Chicago Fire wasn't the biggest). The abstract can be reviewed at the link below, but I've yet to locate a source for the full article that isn't paywalled.

DID BIELA'S COMET CAUSE THE CHICAGO AND MIDWEST FIRES?
Robert M. Wood
2004 Planetary Defense Conference, California, February.

https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2004-1419

 

[EnolaGaia]

One might make a more convincing case for a comet / meteor ignition scenario by concentrating on the other great fires occurring in parallel (e.g., the Great Michigan Fire; the Peshtigo Fire). Focusing on the Chicago fire runs into the problem of enumerating and ruling out the many other alleged and possible ignition sources that have been cited over the last century and a half.

The conditions for major fire outbreaks were ripe, and there had already been a problem with brush and forest fires breaking out in Michigan.

It also strikes me that a case for ignition-from-above would be reinforced if anyone were to collate the origin points for the multiple large fires to see if they could reasonably represent a path of descent consistent with possible Biela's Comet fragments.

 

[Lb8535]

Wasnt this one the cow? Was the cow on the comet?

 

[EnolaGaia]

Wasnt this one the cow? Was the cow on the comet?

The classic / cliched storyline has long been that Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over a lantern and started the Great Chicago Fire. There's no question the fire started in the immediate vicinity of the O'Leary shed / barn, but the specific tale of the cow is disputed.

 

[Lb8535]

The classic / cliched storyline has long been that Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over a lantern and started the Great Chicago Fire. There's no question the fire started in the immediate vicinity of the O'Leary shed / barn, but the specific tale of the cow is disputed.

That's disappointing so I guess she wasn"t trying to kick the lizard person.

 

[hunck]

Are there any eyewitness reports of an explosion/blast wave in the Chicago fires incident? A comet/meteor impact would have some sort of explosive effect.

 

[marhawkman]

Are there any eyewitness reports of an explosion/blast wave in the Chicago fires incident? A comet/meteor impact would have some sort of explosive effect.

This linked abstract does cite such things: https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2004-1419

The one account I read had a picture of a burned forest area with a blast ring, but I don't have a copy of that available. I'm not sure if the picture was of the actual subject of discussion or an example. This if true would seem to be a smoking gun. I remember hearing from my aunt and grandfather stories about it as a child, but was never sure of any of it(and didn't write down exactly what they said). At any rate their testimony would be second hand at best. But their assertations were that the cow story was impossible because of the unusual speed by which the fire spread. Namely the speed by which it jumped buildings.

It's generally accepted that the Andromedid meteors are pieces of Biela's comet and have become les and less frequent over the years since they were first observed. Andromedid meteors are seen between Sept 25 and Dec 6, these fires all took place on Oct 8.

So I made a list of loci:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chicago_Fire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshtigo_fire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland,_Michigan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manistee,_Michigan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Huron,_Michigan

and a map:

Note: locations are mostly approximations since I only have maps of the destroyed areas for Chicago and Peshtigo. I know the Port Huron fire burned parts of 3 counties, but not exactly which parts. so I put the star on top of the region. Holland and Manistee I only know the town burned and some of the surrounding area. Why is the Chicago star so small? land area, it wasn't that big since it was limited to in-town and didn't burn the country side.

Not exactly a straight line, but something close-ish.

 

[marhawkman]

Here's another thing. This talks about meteors causing fires: http://www.fireserviceinfo.com/cow-comet.html
It also speculates that Peshtigo had multiple ignition sources. Then it ends on "and this is why meteors don't cause forest fires".

It also discusses eyewitnesses having seen meteors but I'm not sure which incident that was talking about.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Are there any eyewitness reports of an explosion/blast wave in the Chicago fires incident? A comet/meteor impact would have some sort of explosive effect.

No.

There was an official inquiry, many witnesses, and a thousand or more pages of recorded testimony. Nobody mentioned any such dramatic noise at the outset. All the earliest and most detailed witness accounts mention either direct observation of flame / smoke or the shouts of someone at the scene as the first indication of trouble.

Here are some representative summaries of the primary theories - some of which include the rarely mentioned Louis Cohn confession in his will circa 70 years after the fact.

https://time.com/4055770/great-chicago-fire-origins/
https://history.howstuffworks.com/history-vs-myth/chicago-fire-cow2.htm
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1997-10-08-9710080167-story.html
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-or-who-caused-the-great-chicago-fire-61481977/

Owing to the very hot and dry conditions in that region that year all of the affected areas were tinderboxes ready to be ignited. This 1969 US Forest Service report details the climatic conditions in the Great Lakes area when this cluster of fires broke out:

https://www.ncrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/rp/rp_nc034.pdf

This fundamental point plays both ways. There were plenty of other possible ignition risks in Chicago itself. There had been several fires in Chicago in the preceding days, including a large one the night before which had left the city's firefighters exhausted and some of their equipment destroyed.

However, there are fewer such alternatives one can cite for the rural / forest areas that also burned around that time. These other areas were ripe for burning, and earlier / ongoing fires were noted in Wisconsin and Michigan.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... It also discusses eyewitnesses having seen meteors but I'm not sure which incident that was talking about.

Same here ... I've run across multiple summary or casual accounts that claim there were witness accounts of fireballs or similar phenomena in the sky, but none of them provide any details or references for further exploration of this point.

 

[marhawkman]

Same here ... I've run across multiple summary or casual accounts that claim there were witness accounts of fireballs or similar phenomena in the sky, but none of them provide any details or references for further exploration of this point.

As I noted it IS the time of year people see Andromedids. So seeing meteors wouldn't have been unusual?

 

[EnolaGaia]

As I noted it IS the time of year people see Andromedids. So seeing meteors wouldn't have been unusual?

No - seeing meteors in October isn't unusual. The Southern Taurids shower correlates with the October 8 timeframe.

Seeing Andromedids without a telescope is unusual nowadays.

In any case ... The Chicago fire is the only one that was primarily seen during the night. AFAIK the other fires were primarily daytime events (in terms of when they started).

 

[marhawkman]

No - seeing meteors in October isn't unusual. The Southern Taurids shower correlates with the October 8 timeframe.

Seeing Andromedids without a telescope is unusual nowadays.

In any case ... The Chicago fire is the only one that was primarily seen during the night. AFAIK the other fires were primarily daytime events (in terms of when they started).

Reading about Andromedids, it seems like the modern Andromedids are a faint echo of what they used to be years ago. If they're leftover pieces of Biela's comet then it's possible there's just not many pieces left. 1872 had a HUGE Andromedid shower. Possibly the largest ever?

 

[EnolaGaia]

Reading about Andromedids, it seems like the modern Andromedids are a faint echo of what they used to be years ago. If they're leftover pieces of Biela's comet then it's possible there's just not many pieces left. 1872 had a HUGE Andromedid shower. Possibly the largest ever?

Right ... It was one of the - if not the - most spectacular meteor shower reported during the 19th century.

... but it occurred a year later than the massive fire outbreak.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Several among the accounts of the various big fires mention observations of "fireballs" or glowing bits seen aloft.

Similarly, multiple accounts (especially those relating to the Chicago fire) mention that the notably high sustained winds interacted with the fire(s) to cause dramatic vortices (i.e., the sort of thing called "firenados" in YouTube videos, etc.).

It seems to me there's a good chance some of these observations may have been sightings of embers or burning debris sucked aloft by the fire vortices and carried along by the high winds.

 

[marhawkman]

Yeah I'm pondering what would be considerable as "proof" here and getting a blank. There's no proof as to the causes of any of the fires just an assortment of speculations. Demonstrating plausibility is one thing, but it's not proof.

That one paper mentioned that he'd constructed a mathematical model showing it was possible, but having the math check out doesn't actually prove it happened.

Then there's the question of if meteors can actually start fires. If possible it would seem to be something quite rare.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... That one paper mentioned that he'd constructed a mathematical model showing it was possible, but having the math check out doesn't actually prove it happened.

Agreed ... Demonstrating something could have happened isn't the same thing as proving the hypothetical cause was really the cause.

Then there's the question of if meteors can actually start fires. If possible it would seem to be something quite rare.

I'd say it's more likely that a meteorite might cause a fire by striking rock or similarly hard material and generating sparks upon impact. I have yet to find a reasonable source affirming meteorites can land hot enough to ignite fires by themselves.

 

[marhawkman]

I'd say it's more likely that a meteorite might cause a fire by striking rock or similarly hard material and generating sparks upon impact. I have yet to find a reasonable source affirming meteorites can land hot enough to ignite fires by themselves.

Closest I've seen is the Chelyabinsk bolide. It hit in Russia in the winter, but it seems that it may have melted the ice off a lake? Also people not particularly close reported feeling heat. Would it have caused a fire if it had hit dry brush instead of snow covered trees and icy lakes?

It would seem that in most cases the material that burns on a meteor burns OFF before it gets to the ground. But meteors often have a highly varied interior. The Chelyabinsk object exploded shortly after it was observed to break apart in the atmosphere. It's remains were scattered across Russia in small pieces.

What was it's chemical composition before burning up? Some sources I've seen suggest it was mostly stone with a few iron bits. One thing that gets pointed out a lot is that the heat of a meteor is mostly ablative dissipation. But events like Chelyabinsk do not dissipate high enough to avoid causing damage. It's an edge case to be sure, but it's seemingly happened more than once already. After seeing the shockwave at Chelyabinsk it's pretty clear that Tunguska was a similar event. A body that is solid rock or solid iron has a very stable and consistent burn as it goes through atmosphere. But one that is heavily mixed might burn in fits and sputters. The Chelyabinsk object seems to maybe have broken apart because of this. Then it flared drastically when it's surface area increased.