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Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894
On September 1, 1894 two forest fires converged on the town of Hinckley, Minnesota, trapping over 2,000 people. Daniel J. Brown recounts the events surrounding the fire in the first and only book on to chronicle the dramatic story that unfolded. Whereas Oregon's famous "Biscuit" fire in 2002 burned 350,000 acres in one week, the Hinckley fire did the same damage in five hours. The fire created its own weather, including hurricane-strength winds, bubbles of plasma-like glowing gas, and 200-foot-tall flames. In some instances, "fire whirls," or tornadoes of fire, danced out from the main body of the fire to knock down buildings and carry flaming debris into the sky. Temperatures reached 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit--the melting point of steel. As the fire surrounded the town, two railroads became the only means of escape. Two trains ran the gauntlet of fire. One train caught on fire from one end to the other. The heroic young African-American porter ran up and down the length of the train, reassuring the passengers even as the flames tore at their clothes. On the other train, the engineer refused to back his locomotive out of town until the last possible minute of escape. In all, more than 400 people died, leading to a revolution in forestry management practices and federal agencies that monitor and fight wildfires today.
Author Daniel Brown has woven together numerous survivors' stories, historical sources, and interviews with forest fire experts in a gripping narrative that tells the fascinating story of one of North America's most devastating fires and how it changed the nation.
A 2007 Washington State Book Award finalist.
Author Daniel Brown has woven together numerous survivors' stories, historical sources, and interviews with forest fire experts in a gripping narrative that tells the fascinating story of one of North America's most devastating fires and how it changed the nation.
A 2007 Washington State Book Award finalist.
288 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2006
482 people are currently reading
9025 people want to read
About the author
Daniel James Brown
8 books2,211 followersDaniel James Brown lives in the country east of Redmond, Washington, where he writes nonfiction books about compelling historical events.
Brown's newest book--Facing the Mountain--follows the lives of four young Japanese American men as they and their families bravely confront harsh new realities brought about by the onset of World War II. Facing the Mountain comes on the heels of Brown's New York Times bestseller--The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. That book chronicles the extraordinary saga of nine working class boys who stormed the rowing world, transformed the sport, and galvanized the attention of millions of Americans in the midst of the Great Depression. MGM has acquired the rights to adapt the book for a feature film to be directed by George Clooney.
His second book--The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride--was chosen as an INDIE NEXT NOTABLE SELECTION by the American Bookseller's Association, it recounts the extraordinary journey of a young woman whose fate became entangled with that of the infamous Donner Party in 1846. His first book--Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894--takes the reader back to the events of September 1, 1894, when his great-grandfather and more than 300 other people died in one of America's greatest forest-fire disasters. That book was selected as a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, was named one of the Best Books of 2006 by Booklist magazine, and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award.
Brown's newest book--Facing the Mountain--follows the lives of four young Japanese American men as they and their families bravely confront harsh new realities brought about by the onset of World War II. Facing the Mountain comes on the heels of Brown's New York Times bestseller--The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. That book chronicles the extraordinary saga of nine working class boys who stormed the rowing world, transformed the sport, and galvanized the attention of millions of Americans in the midst of the Great Depression. MGM has acquired the rights to adapt the book for a feature film to be directed by George Clooney.
His second book--The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride--was chosen as an INDIE NEXT NOTABLE SELECTION by the American Bookseller's Association, it recounts the extraordinary journey of a young woman whose fate became entangled with that of the infamous Donner Party in 1846. His first book--Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894--takes the reader back to the events of September 1, 1894, when his great-grandfather and more than 300 other people died in one of America's greatest forest-fire disasters. That book was selected as a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, was named one of the Best Books of 2006 by Booklist magazine, and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award.
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December 26, 2024
“Within moments, there was no more room to pull back and the flames were upon them, lapping at their feet, blistering their ankles and shins, racing up their clothing, slapping at their faces. One by one, the women's long dresses erupted – large, tangerine-orange blossoms of fire wavering in the smokey gloom. Everyone screamed, but the screams came out thin and unnaturally high-pitched. The withering heat had desiccated their vocal cords, pulling them taut like overstretched rubber bands. Grown men suddenly sounded like young girls. When the screams were over, they had to breathe in, and when they did they inhaled flames and superheated air, sucking the flames into their very mouths. Then, clawing at the air, black silhouettes dancing among the orange flames, they began to die…”
- Daniel James Brown, Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894
Growing up, we never went on typical family vacations. There was no Disneyland, no Disneyworld, and seldom a beach, unless that particular body of water also had a shipwreck museum. Instead we went to historical sites. Two weeks every summer given over to old houses, marble statues, and endless battlefields.
Following one of these jaunts, we were on our way home from Duluth, Minnesota and stopped in the town of Hinckley for the locally famous cinnamon rolls. In my opinion, all cinnamon rolls taste the same: pretty good. Thus, while everyone else over-enjoyed their warm bread doused in frosting, I wandered away, where I noticed a sign for the Hinckley Fire Museum. Since this occurred during my firefighter stage, I whined and we all went.
Oh, such fascinating, dreadful things!
There was an old-time fire wagon with hand pump and hose. There were sundry items of daily life, charred almost beyond recognition. There was a papier-mâché diorama. An animatronic telegraph operator even tapped out haunting messages as the firestorm approached town.
And the mural. They had a mural, and it was graphic.
I learned grim and unforgettable things that day, of a tornado of fire, and trains racing over burning trestles, and people sheltering in a mill pond even as sawdust floating on the surface exploded into flames.
For years, I thought about what I’d absorbed. At some point in college, I wanted to know more, and discovered that not much had been published. I even ended up calling the Fire Museum from my dorm room, asking for resources, and plotting how I might write about it myself.
Then Daniel James Brown published Under a Flaming Sky, and I realized that he left very little about this tragedy unsaid.
***
Under a Flaming Sky has it all. Though short, it feels comprehensive, and almost every page has something interesting written upon it. It combines personal storylines with excellent scientific asides for a finished product that is both dramatically and intellectually satisfying. With seeming ease, Brown does what every disaster writer since Sebastian Junger in The Perfect Storm has aspired to do, which is to deconstruct a catastrophe without dampening its primitive horror.
***
Brown sets the scene by introducing us to Hinckley, Minnesota – and a handful of its residents – in the last years before the arrival of the twentieth century. It is September after a long, dry summer, filled by bad tidings. There had been fires all across the Upper Midwest, the haze from the smoke blurring the air.
As Brown explains, the coming inferno was a natural disaster aided by good old-fashioned American greed. Once almost completely covered with trees, lumber companies were in the process of clear-cutting Minnesota. This left a huge amount of leftover debris – called slash – which the loggers, always in a hurry, simply left on the ground.
In severe drought, all this slash roasted in the sun, as did the still-standing forests around it. The lack of rain, combined with plummeting humidity, leeched the moisture from twigs, grass, pine needles, and the soil itself.
The most likely hypothesis of the Hinckley Fire’s origin is that a spark from a passing train came to rest on a slash pile, sparking a blaze that quickly converged on the helpless town.
***
Throughout the book, Brown seamlessly blends the comings and goings of his characters, with topical digressions into weather, fire behavior, and the process of dying in a conflagration. Done poorly, this type of bifurcated structure can make it feel like you’re reading two different books. Done well – a difficult feat that Brown accomplishes – and the two parts inform each other. The individual arcs are filled with tension, foreboding, and ultimately a visceral terror, while the scientific cutaways provide pacing respites, while also establishing the conditions that the victims and survivors endured.
For instance, Brown factually describes the process of a firestorm, which is what engulfed Hinckley on September 1, 1894:
Later, Brown shows us the actual consequences of this flaring stormfront. For instance, he describes the fate of 127 men, women, and children who tried to take shelter in a grassy clearing that – but for a severe drought – would’ve been a swamp.
Vivid descriptions of death by fire is obviously not the most cheerful literary subject. Yet the reality of the Hinckley Fire was horrific, and Brown’s unflinching refusal to look away from it is part of what makes Under a Flaming Sky so effective.
***
Disaster reveals a lot about people, and in every calamity, some rise above themselves, while others simply run. It’s hard – from the distance of 129 years, while sitting in a non-burning room – to judge too harshly. I kept this in mind as Brown described a Hinckley resident struggling down the street with two children, screaming “My God, we’ll die! My God, we’ll die!”
I don’t know that I’d do any better.
Others performed in more exemplary fashion. Eighteen years before Titanic’s wireless operators achieved lasting fame, telegrapher Tommy Dunn stood his post at the St. Paul & Duluth Depot, trying to get in touch with nearby trains. His body was found by the depot, after the burning wave had crashed.
There was also Engineer Jim Root, who became famous for driving his train – in reverse – to Skunk Lake, saving a number of passengers. Though he outran the flames, Brown gently suggests that Root’s decision to drive into the fire in the first place – despite ample warning – might have been a function of maintaining the railroad’s timetables.
A lesser-known – and less controversial hero – is porter John Blair, a black man who calmed passengers and helped usher them to safety.
***
If I have a criticism, it’s that the chapters after the fire, dealing with Hinckley's rebirth – as a place to get cinnamon rolls on the way to Duluth – are a bit anticlimactic. That’s to be expected, especially after the peak intensity of the fire scenes.
***
Many years after my first visit to the Hinckley Fire Museum, I returned with my own kids. I wanted them to experience the same fascination I had experienced, so long before.
Though I sometimes wondered if I had dreamt the mural, it was there, taking up an entire wall. I went to it immediately, drawn in by the weird balance it achieved between kitschy folk art and Boschian hellscape. In the center is Root’s burning train at Skunk Lake, passengers huddled in shallow water, surrounded by a solid palisade of red flame. Around this macabre centerpiece are vignettes: fire bursting into the telegraph office; a family of three fleeing their burning house, their clothes starting to catch; deer running through a nightmarish forest; a husband and wife gripping their three children, at the center of a blazing wreath, faces distorted by whatever exists after fear.
I motioned for my oldest daughter to come over, so we could explore the mural together. Part of me wanted to see how she’d react, as though I was passing on a grisly heirloom. Part of me hoped she’d be as enthralled as I’d been at her age. Part of me wanted to start explaining that while the world is a big and beautiful place, it is also relentlessly cruel and unfair, and sometimes – just sometimes – all you can do is catch the last train out of town.
After a couple minutes – or was it fifteen seconds? – she turned to me, looked up, and said: “Can we go to the gift shop now.” And that is the story of how we purchased a generic slap-bracelet at a hyperlocal museum.
Perhaps, someday, I’ll try again to get her interested, and I’ll probably use this book.
- Daniel James Brown, Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894
Growing up, we never went on typical family vacations. There was no Disneyland, no Disneyworld, and seldom a beach, unless that particular body of water also had a shipwreck museum. Instead we went to historical sites. Two weeks every summer given over to old houses, marble statues, and endless battlefields.
Following one of these jaunts, we were on our way home from Duluth, Minnesota and stopped in the town of Hinckley for the locally famous cinnamon rolls. In my opinion, all cinnamon rolls taste the same: pretty good. Thus, while everyone else over-enjoyed their warm bread doused in frosting, I wandered away, where I noticed a sign for the Hinckley Fire Museum. Since this occurred during my firefighter stage, I whined and we all went.
Oh, such fascinating, dreadful things!
There was an old-time fire wagon with hand pump and hose. There were sundry items of daily life, charred almost beyond recognition. There was a papier-mâché diorama. An animatronic telegraph operator even tapped out haunting messages as the firestorm approached town.
And the mural. They had a mural, and it was graphic.
I learned grim and unforgettable things that day, of a tornado of fire, and trains racing over burning trestles, and people sheltering in a mill pond even as sawdust floating on the surface exploded into flames.
For years, I thought about what I’d absorbed. At some point in college, I wanted to know more, and discovered that not much had been published. I even ended up calling the Fire Museum from my dorm room, asking for resources, and plotting how I might write about it myself.
Then Daniel James Brown published Under a Flaming Sky, and I realized that he left very little about this tragedy unsaid.
***
Under a Flaming Sky has it all. Though short, it feels comprehensive, and almost every page has something interesting written upon it. It combines personal storylines with excellent scientific asides for a finished product that is both dramatically and intellectually satisfying. With seeming ease, Brown does what every disaster writer since Sebastian Junger in The Perfect Storm has aspired to do, which is to deconstruct a catastrophe without dampening its primitive horror.
***
Brown sets the scene by introducing us to Hinckley, Minnesota – and a handful of its residents – in the last years before the arrival of the twentieth century. It is September after a long, dry summer, filled by bad tidings. There had been fires all across the Upper Midwest, the haze from the smoke blurring the air.
As Brown explains, the coming inferno was a natural disaster aided by good old-fashioned American greed. Once almost completely covered with trees, lumber companies were in the process of clear-cutting Minnesota. This left a huge amount of leftover debris – called slash – which the loggers, always in a hurry, simply left on the ground.
In severe drought, all this slash roasted in the sun, as did the still-standing forests around it. The lack of rain, combined with plummeting humidity, leeched the moisture from twigs, grass, pine needles, and the soil itself.
The most likely hypothesis of the Hinckley Fire’s origin is that a spark from a passing train came to rest on a slash pile, sparking a blaze that quickly converged on the helpless town.
***
Throughout the book, Brown seamlessly blends the comings and goings of his characters, with topical digressions into weather, fire behavior, and the process of dying in a conflagration. Done poorly, this type of bifurcated structure can make it feel like you’re reading two different books. Done well – a difficult feat that Brown accomplishes – and the two parts inform each other. The individual arcs are filled with tension, foreboding, and ultimately a visceral terror, while the scientific cutaways provide pacing respites, while also establishing the conditions that the victims and survivors endured.
For instance, Brown factually describes the process of a firestorm, which is what engulfed Hinckley on September 1, 1894:
Mass fires...generate enormous winds, often of hurricane velocity. Sometimes these winds begin to rotate and become cyclonic, creating fire vortices – tornadoes of fire that may advance well ahead of the main flaming front. Because of the tremendous updraft in their convection columns, mass fires typically pick up thousands of flaming or glowing firebrands...They may carry these as much as 18,000 feet into the air before throwing them miles ahead of their fronts, spawning spot fires wherever the firebrands land in fuel. And because mass fires consume their fuel so rapidly, they often exhaust all the available oxygen in the air before they have finished burning all the carbon and volatile gases that they have released from their fuels.
Later, Brown shows us the actual consequences of this flaring stormfront. For instance, he describes the fate of 127 men, women, and children who tried to take shelter in a grassy clearing that – but for a severe drought – would’ve been a swamp.
[T]here was fire on all sides of them now, and the heat was withering, searing their faces, forcing their eyes shut. With every minute that passed, the heat was becoming more unbearable. Instinctively, people got down on their hands and knees and pressed their mouths close to the ground, sucking in the cooler air. People prayed and cried and wailed. They gagged and retched on the smoke. Some simply sat in the grass, staring at the approaching flames as if they could see something through them. Soon flames dropped down from the trees and danced along the edges of the clearing all around them, rippling through grass that had looked so cool and green…
Vivid descriptions of death by fire is obviously not the most cheerful literary subject. Yet the reality of the Hinckley Fire was horrific, and Brown’s unflinching refusal to look away from it is part of what makes Under a Flaming Sky so effective.
***
Disaster reveals a lot about people, and in every calamity, some rise above themselves, while others simply run. It’s hard – from the distance of 129 years, while sitting in a non-burning room – to judge too harshly. I kept this in mind as Brown described a Hinckley resident struggling down the street with two children, screaming “My God, we’ll die! My God, we’ll die!”
I don’t know that I’d do any better.
Others performed in more exemplary fashion. Eighteen years before Titanic’s wireless operators achieved lasting fame, telegrapher Tommy Dunn stood his post at the St. Paul & Duluth Depot, trying to get in touch with nearby trains. His body was found by the depot, after the burning wave had crashed.
There was also Engineer Jim Root, who became famous for driving his train – in reverse – to Skunk Lake, saving a number of passengers. Though he outran the flames, Brown gently suggests that Root’s decision to drive into the fire in the first place – despite ample warning – might have been a function of maintaining the railroad’s timetables.
A lesser-known – and less controversial hero – is porter John Blair, a black man who calmed passengers and helped usher them to safety.
***
If I have a criticism, it’s that the chapters after the fire, dealing with Hinckley's rebirth – as a place to get cinnamon rolls on the way to Duluth – are a bit anticlimactic. That’s to be expected, especially after the peak intensity of the fire scenes.
***
Many years after my first visit to the Hinckley Fire Museum, I returned with my own kids. I wanted them to experience the same fascination I had experienced, so long before.
Though I sometimes wondered if I had dreamt the mural, it was there, taking up an entire wall. I went to it immediately, drawn in by the weird balance it achieved between kitschy folk art and Boschian hellscape. In the center is Root’s burning train at Skunk Lake, passengers huddled in shallow water, surrounded by a solid palisade of red flame. Around this macabre centerpiece are vignettes: fire bursting into the telegraph office; a family of three fleeing their burning house, their clothes starting to catch; deer running through a nightmarish forest; a husband and wife gripping their three children, at the center of a blazing wreath, faces distorted by whatever exists after fear.
I motioned for my oldest daughter to come over, so we could explore the mural together. Part of me wanted to see how she’d react, as though I was passing on a grisly heirloom. Part of me hoped she’d be as enthralled as I’d been at her age. Part of me wanted to start explaining that while the world is a big and beautiful place, it is also relentlessly cruel and unfair, and sometimes – just sometimes – all you can do is catch the last train out of town.
After a couple minutes – or was it fifteen seconds? – she turned to me, looked up, and said: “Can we go to the gift shop now.” And that is the story of how we purchased a generic slap-bracelet at a hyperlocal museum.
Perhaps, someday, I’ll try again to get her interested, and I’ll probably use this book.
November 21, 2024
This book tells the tale of a devastating conflagration that wiped out the town of Hinckley in the year 1894. The relevance to today, as much of our country goes up in smoke, cannot be overstated.
Daniel James Brown - image from Washington University Libraries
There is much information here that was news to me, details about prairie fires. Much of the book is taken up with a novelistic recreation of the actions of a host of real people, some of whom survived the event, most of whom did not. I found that I was not all that engaged with the personal struggles, but was far more interested in the scientific details. Obviously there is considerable overlap as the science describes how human beings are forcefully discorporated by a horrendous natural force.
========================A LOT OF QUOTES
P 64 - [referring to Fire in America by Steven Pyne] In Pyne’s terminology, a mass fire that remains stationary is a firestorm; one that moves is a conflagration. Regardless of this finer distinction, though, all mass fires have certain characteristics that set them apart from ordinary wildfires. They are typically born when two or more smaller fires—often a main fire and the spot fires that it has spawned around its periphery—suddenly merge into a single eruption of flame. The flaming fronts may tower as high as one hundred feet over the tops of the trees, or two hundred feet above the ground. They may advance as fast at 15 miles per hour on level ground—much faster on a slope—and release energy at rates as high at 30,000BTU’s per foot of fire line per second. They create huge convection columns that loom over the surrounding countryside, radiating heat downward and thus drying out the fuel in their paths.
At one point, toward the peak of the Sundance Fire’s intensity, observers saw the side of an entire mountain, the west slope of Apache ridge, erupt into flames in a single instant. The angle of the ridge had exposed the mountainside to an enormous amount of radiant heat from the convection column, quickly drying out the forest and raising its temperature the kindling point. The first ember that landed on the mountainside had then ignited the whole thing as if it were soaked in gasoline.
p 65- Mass fires also generate enormous winds, often of hurricane velocity. Sometimes these winds begin to rotate and become cyclonic, creating fire vortices—tornadoes of fire that may advance well ahead of the main flaming front. Because of the tremendous draft in their convection columns, mass fires typically pick up thousands of flaming of glowing firebrands—some as large as burning logs. They may carry these as much as 18,000 feet into the air before throwing them miles ahead of their fronts, spawning spot fires wherever the firebrands land in fuel. And because mass fires consume their fuel so rapidly, they often exhaust all the available oxygen in the air before they have finished burning off all the carbon and volatile gases that they have released from their fuels. As a result they produce vast clouds of black smoke, black because it’s carrying a heavy load of unburned carbon. As this superheated carbon rises, it eventually encounters enough oxygen to allow combustion to resume, and flames arc in sheets across the sky. To people on the ground it appears that the sky itself is on fire. Most spectacularly of all, glowing bubbles of the gases released by fire—bubbles that may be as big as a car or even a house—may float some distance ahead of the fire like gigantic balloons dancing in the sky before igniting suddenly over the heads of onlookers.
p79 - [regarding a group of people in a clearing]
…there was fire on all sides of them now, and the heat was withering, searing their faces amd forcing their eyes shut. With every minute that passed, the heat was becoming more unbearable. Instinctively, people got down on their hands and knees and pressed their mouths close to the ground, sucking in cooler air. People prayed and cried and wailed. They gagged and wretched on the smoke. Some simply sat in the grass, staring at the approaching flames as is they could see something through them.
Soon the flames dropped down from the trees and dances along the edges of the clearing all around them, rippling through the grass that had looked so cool and green. They made a sharp crackling sound in the grass. Billows of sweet-smelling white smoke drifted up toward the black sky. Moaning, people rose and pulled away from the advancing flames, crowding each other, jostling each other as they pulled back, packing themselves into the very center of the clearing.
But within moments, there was no more room to pull back and the flames were upon them, lapping at their feet, blistering their ankles and shins, racing up their clothing, slapping at their faces. One by one, the women’s long dresses erupted—large tangerine-orange blossoms of fire wavering in the smoky gloom. Everyone screamed, but the screams came out thin and unnaturally high-pitched. The withering heat had dessicated their vocal cords, pulling them taught like overstretched rubber bands. Grown men suddenly sounded like young girls. When the screams were over they had to breathe in, and when they did they inhaled flames and superheated air, sucking the flames into their very mouths. Then, clawing at the air, black silhouettes dancing among the orange flames, they began to die.
p 83 - Fire kills in several ways, depending on the circumstances. Some are much worse than others. The luckiest of fire’s victims die in their sleep, something that is surprisingly easy to do. All fires consume large amounts of oxygen and emit large amounts of carbon monoxide. They may emit a number of other gases as well, depending on the fuel that feeds them, and many of these gases, like carbon dioxide and cyanide, can also kill. But carbon monoxide kills the overwhelming majority of fire victims. Because it is tasteless and odorless, sleeping victims often never awaken to see, hear or smell the fire that kills them. The brain will scream out for more oxygen if carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs, but carbon monoxide is subtler. A stealth killer it sets off no alarms. It silently fills the lungs then—bonding to the hemoglobin in the blood 250 times more readily than oxygen to form a compound called carboxyhemoglobin (COHb)—it rapidly displaces the oxygen in the bloodstream. The brain and other vital organs are caught unawares. Suddenly deprived of oxygen, and having no other choice, vital organs such as the brain simply shut down, rather promptly. By the time the saturation of CODb in the bloodstream reaches 90 percent, death comes in minutes
Unfortunately, death by fire is not always so easy. Fully conscious victims, if they are surrounded by both flames and adequate oxygen, may remain alert until the flames have reached them and begun to consume their flesh. Oxygen ordinarily represents 21 percent of the air we breath, but we can generally maintain consciousness until the level falls to about 9 percent. Even if the flames themselves do not make it to conscious victims, it sometimes happens that those victims are forced to breathe superheated air—air that still contains some oxygen but is so hot that it burns away the soft tissues in their mouths, throats and vocal chords. These people know, for at least a few moments, what it is like to be burned alive, both from without and from within. If victims do not lose consciousness and there fore stay in one place anc continue to breathe the hot gases for a prolonged period of time, the damage from these hot gases may extend into their lower respiratory systems. Then even their alveoli, the 300 million or so tiny air sacks that line the lungs and transfer oxygen to the bloodstream, may be burned away, a fate that many people in the dry marsh north of the Grindstone probably suffered. But the fire has even worse to offer.
Fire always emits heat in the form of radiation. Radiant heat travels away from its source at the speed of light, so, for all practical purposes, it is felt instantaneously by anyone in the vicinity of a fire. This is the hat you feel on your face sitting in front of a fireplace on a cold winter’s evening. If you raise a hand, or any other shield, between your face and the fire, the heat on your face disappears immediately. The radiation emitted by a fire falls away fairly quickly with distance., so if you move your chair across the room it is likely that you won’t feel any noticeable heat on your face, though the air in the room may well be heated by convection from the fire. If the fire is big enough—say, a bonfire on a beach—you may have to stand quite a distance from it in order to be comfortable. But if it’s as big as a forest fire, you may not be able to get far enough away from it fast enough to avoid being broiled alive. This is the unkindest way fire kills, by the sheer application of heat. It is only likely to happen when the victim has enough oxygen to breathe for a sustained period of time—thus remaining fully conscious—but is still near enough to an overwhelming source of heat to be killed by it. Fortunately, since large fires consume enormous amounts of oxygen, this is relatively rare.
July 5, 2012 - Timothy Egan's column addresses what can only be called The Burning Time as the summer of 2012 puts the lie to deniers of global warming, as do the conflagrations in 2020
Daniel James Brown - image from Washington University Libraries
There is much information here that was news to me, details about prairie fires. Much of the book is taken up with a novelistic recreation of the actions of a host of real people, some of whom survived the event, most of whom did not. I found that I was not all that engaged with the personal struggles, but was far more interested in the scientific details. Obviously there is considerable overlap as the science describes how human beings are forcefully discorporated by a horrendous natural force.
========================A LOT OF QUOTES
P 64 - [referring to Fire in America by Steven Pyne] In Pyne’s terminology, a mass fire that remains stationary is a firestorm; one that moves is a conflagration. Regardless of this finer distinction, though, all mass fires have certain characteristics that set them apart from ordinary wildfires. They are typically born when two or more smaller fires—often a main fire and the spot fires that it has spawned around its periphery—suddenly merge into a single eruption of flame. The flaming fronts may tower as high as one hundred feet over the tops of the trees, or two hundred feet above the ground. They may advance as fast at 15 miles per hour on level ground—much faster on a slope—and release energy at rates as high at 30,000BTU’s per foot of fire line per second. They create huge convection columns that loom over the surrounding countryside, radiating heat downward and thus drying out the fuel in their paths.
At one point, toward the peak of the Sundance Fire’s intensity, observers saw the side of an entire mountain, the west slope of Apache ridge, erupt into flames in a single instant. The angle of the ridge had exposed the mountainside to an enormous amount of radiant heat from the convection column, quickly drying out the forest and raising its temperature the kindling point. The first ember that landed on the mountainside had then ignited the whole thing as if it were soaked in gasoline.
p 65- Mass fires also generate enormous winds, often of hurricane velocity. Sometimes these winds begin to rotate and become cyclonic, creating fire vortices—tornadoes of fire that may advance well ahead of the main flaming front. Because of the tremendous draft in their convection columns, mass fires typically pick up thousands of flaming of glowing firebrands—some as large as burning logs. They may carry these as much as 18,000 feet into the air before throwing them miles ahead of their fronts, spawning spot fires wherever the firebrands land in fuel. And because mass fires consume their fuel so rapidly, they often exhaust all the available oxygen in the air before they have finished burning off all the carbon and volatile gases that they have released from their fuels. As a result they produce vast clouds of black smoke, black because it’s carrying a heavy load of unburned carbon. As this superheated carbon rises, it eventually encounters enough oxygen to allow combustion to resume, and flames arc in sheets across the sky. To people on the ground it appears that the sky itself is on fire. Most spectacularly of all, glowing bubbles of the gases released by fire—bubbles that may be as big as a car or even a house—may float some distance ahead of the fire like gigantic balloons dancing in the sky before igniting suddenly over the heads of onlookers.
p79 - [regarding a group of people in a clearing]
…there was fire on all sides of them now, and the heat was withering, searing their faces amd forcing their eyes shut. With every minute that passed, the heat was becoming more unbearable. Instinctively, people got down on their hands and knees and pressed their mouths close to the ground, sucking in cooler air. People prayed and cried and wailed. They gagged and wretched on the smoke. Some simply sat in the grass, staring at the approaching flames as is they could see something through them.
Soon the flames dropped down from the trees and dances along the edges of the clearing all around them, rippling through the grass that had looked so cool and green. They made a sharp crackling sound in the grass. Billows of sweet-smelling white smoke drifted up toward the black sky. Moaning, people rose and pulled away from the advancing flames, crowding each other, jostling each other as they pulled back, packing themselves into the very center of the clearing.
But within moments, there was no more room to pull back and the flames were upon them, lapping at their feet, blistering their ankles and shins, racing up their clothing, slapping at their faces. One by one, the women’s long dresses erupted—large tangerine-orange blossoms of fire wavering in the smoky gloom. Everyone screamed, but the screams came out thin and unnaturally high-pitched. The withering heat had dessicated their vocal cords, pulling them taught like overstretched rubber bands. Grown men suddenly sounded like young girls. When the screams were over they had to breathe in, and when they did they inhaled flames and superheated air, sucking the flames into their very mouths. Then, clawing at the air, black silhouettes dancing among the orange flames, they began to die.
p 83 - Fire kills in several ways, depending on the circumstances. Some are much worse than others. The luckiest of fire’s victims die in their sleep, something that is surprisingly easy to do. All fires consume large amounts of oxygen and emit large amounts of carbon monoxide. They may emit a number of other gases as well, depending on the fuel that feeds them, and many of these gases, like carbon dioxide and cyanide, can also kill. But carbon monoxide kills the overwhelming majority of fire victims. Because it is tasteless and odorless, sleeping victims often never awaken to see, hear or smell the fire that kills them. The brain will scream out for more oxygen if carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs, but carbon monoxide is subtler. A stealth killer it sets off no alarms. It silently fills the lungs then—bonding to the hemoglobin in the blood 250 times more readily than oxygen to form a compound called carboxyhemoglobin (COHb)—it rapidly displaces the oxygen in the bloodstream. The brain and other vital organs are caught unawares. Suddenly deprived of oxygen, and having no other choice, vital organs such as the brain simply shut down, rather promptly. By the time the saturation of CODb in the bloodstream reaches 90 percent, death comes in minutes
Unfortunately, death by fire is not always so easy. Fully conscious victims, if they are surrounded by both flames and adequate oxygen, may remain alert until the flames have reached them and begun to consume their flesh. Oxygen ordinarily represents 21 percent of the air we breath, but we can generally maintain consciousness until the level falls to about 9 percent. Even if the flames themselves do not make it to conscious victims, it sometimes happens that those victims are forced to breathe superheated air—air that still contains some oxygen but is so hot that it burns away the soft tissues in their mouths, throats and vocal chords. These people know, for at least a few moments, what it is like to be burned alive, both from without and from within. If victims do not lose consciousness and there fore stay in one place anc continue to breathe the hot gases for a prolonged period of time, the damage from these hot gases may extend into their lower respiratory systems. Then even their alveoli, the 300 million or so tiny air sacks that line the lungs and transfer oxygen to the bloodstream, may be burned away, a fate that many people in the dry marsh north of the Grindstone probably suffered. But the fire has even worse to offer.
Fire always emits heat in the form of radiation. Radiant heat travels away from its source at the speed of light, so, for all practical purposes, it is felt instantaneously by anyone in the vicinity of a fire. This is the hat you feel on your face sitting in front of a fireplace on a cold winter’s evening. If you raise a hand, or any other shield, between your face and the fire, the heat on your face disappears immediately. The radiation emitted by a fire falls away fairly quickly with distance., so if you move your chair across the room it is likely that you won’t feel any noticeable heat on your face, though the air in the room may well be heated by convection from the fire. If the fire is big enough—say, a bonfire on a beach—you may have to stand quite a distance from it in order to be comfortable. But if it’s as big as a forest fire, you may not be able to get far enough away from it fast enough to avoid being broiled alive. This is the unkindest way fire kills, by the sheer application of heat. It is only likely to happen when the victim has enough oxygen to breathe for a sustained period of time—thus remaining fully conscious—but is still near enough to an overwhelming source of heat to be killed by it. Fortunately, since large fires consume enormous amounts of oxygen, this is relatively rare.
July 5, 2012 - Timothy Egan's column addresses what can only be called The Burning Time as the summer of 2012 puts the lie to deniers of global warming, as do the conflagrations in 2020
April 27, 2024
I was not familiar with the 1894 fire in Hinkley, MN. I listened to it on audiobook. This tragic event was long before meteorology, technology, and communications systems were created to warn citizens of danger.
This story is not for the faint of heart because injury or death by fire is horrific. It demonstrates decisions people make on how quickly to react, whether to wait for all family members, and what, if anything, they pack. The escape routes they chose resulted in life or death.
This story is not for the faint of heart because injury or death by fire is horrific. It demonstrates decisions people make on how quickly to react, whether to wait for all family members, and what, if anything, they pack. The escape routes they chose resulted in life or death.
July 18, 2023
I have absolutely no complaints with this book, but it is an emotionally difficult read. I stopped and asked myself occasionally why I put myself through this. My response? To keep myself informed. However reading this, can scarcely be called enjoyable.
I want to emphasize that the author does not exaggerate or overdramatize events. He is simply recording the facts. His grandfather lived through the firestorm and had terrible nightmares years and years later. With the writing of this book, what happened will not be forgotten.
Weather phenomena, forestry routines practiced in the area, similar incendiary catastrophes are clearly documented in an intelligible manner. We observe step by step exactly what happened. The information provided about the people living through the firestorm makes one’s heart go out to them. The flow of information from one topic to another makes the reading manageable. One can absorb only so much of the horrific until one must have a break. The author take this into consideration.
We learn what happens to all those we meet during the storm. In the epilogue, we learn how those who survived came to view what they lived through and how it had changed them. They certainly did not all behave in the same way, nor were they affected similarly.
We observe heroic behavior and deplorable behavior. The author balances the two well.
Mark Bramhall reads the audiobook. He does a fantastic job. His voice is clear, and his tone is calm. I couldn’t have gotten through this as an audiobook had a narrator who dramatizes been chosen. Bramhall’s narration I have given five stars.
A very good book, but an extremely difficult read. I tend to empathize too much. Books like this upset me. They wear me down, yet I don’t regret reading it.
********************************
*The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics 4 stars
*Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894 4 stars
*Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II TBR
*The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride
I want to emphasize that the author does not exaggerate or overdramatize events. He is simply recording the facts. His grandfather lived through the firestorm and had terrible nightmares years and years later. With the writing of this book, what happened will not be forgotten.
Weather phenomena, forestry routines practiced in the area, similar incendiary catastrophes are clearly documented in an intelligible manner. We observe step by step exactly what happened. The information provided about the people living through the firestorm makes one’s heart go out to them. The flow of information from one topic to another makes the reading manageable. One can absorb only so much of the horrific until one must have a break. The author take this into consideration.
We learn what happens to all those we meet during the storm. In the epilogue, we learn how those who survived came to view what they lived through and how it had changed them. They certainly did not all behave in the same way, nor were they affected similarly.
We observe heroic behavior and deplorable behavior. The author balances the two well.
Mark Bramhall reads the audiobook. He does a fantastic job. His voice is clear, and his tone is calm. I couldn’t have gotten through this as an audiobook had a narrator who dramatizes been chosen. Bramhall’s narration I have given five stars.
A very good book, but an extremely difficult read. I tend to empathize too much. Books like this upset me. They wear me down, yet I don’t regret reading it.
********************************
*The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics 4 stars
*Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894 4 stars
*Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II TBR
*The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride
September 11, 2020
On September 1, 1894, a combination of dried tree branches, scorching temperatures, a Canadian high front and a complacent citizenry combined to create the perfect forest fire that leveled Hinckley, Minnesota, a small lumbering town halfway between St. Paul and Duluth. The town lost nearly half its population, some of whom suffocated, many of whom burned to death. This tragic story and its aftermath is told readably and well in UNDER A FLAMING SKY (2006).
Author Daniel James Brown, who would go on to win accolades in 2013 with The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics has done very well with this one, his starter book. It was amazing to me how much history, personality and local color he managed to convey while covering an event now over 125 years old. The smoke and the stench and the shrieks of the suffering come across with unusual clarity here. I am also reminded just how, even after a century's worth of forestry management, forest fires still have the power to strike without warning, terrifying all in their path and forcing them to evacuate. (Just this morning, I learned that the Oregon in-laws of a friend had had to clear out so quickly, they left chickens and barn cats behind.)
This book rates a good clean recommendation. Some illustrations would have helped.
from the book:
Anderson's clothes were smoldering and he didn't hesitate. He staggered into the cold water and sat down, holding the baby's head and his own just above the surface. The cold water gripped his privates, his belly, and his chest like a vise, pressing the breath out of him and making him gasp. But it numbed the pain of the burns on his back. The baby was red-faced, bawling, its small face screwed up with fear and rage and shock. (p. 115)
Author Daniel James Brown, who would go on to win accolades in 2013 with The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics has done very well with this one, his starter book. It was amazing to me how much history, personality and local color he managed to convey while covering an event now over 125 years old. The smoke and the stench and the shrieks of the suffering come across with unusual clarity here. I am also reminded just how, even after a century's worth of forestry management, forest fires still have the power to strike without warning, terrifying all in their path and forcing them to evacuate. (Just this morning, I learned that the Oregon in-laws of a friend had had to clear out so quickly, they left chickens and barn cats behind.)
This book rates a good clean recommendation. Some illustrations would have helped.
from the book:
Anderson's clothes were smoldering and he didn't hesitate. He staggered into the cold water and sat down, holding the baby's head and his own just above the surface. The cold water gripped his privates, his belly, and his chest like a vise, pressing the breath out of him and making him gasp. But it numbed the pain of the burns on his back. The baby was red-faced, bawling, its small face screwed up with fear and rage and shock. (p. 115)
September 13, 2014
All of my life I've heard about The Great Hinckley Fire and have seen multiple pictures of the monument but I never knew much about what happened other than my great-great grandparents were able to escape with my great grandfather and his siblings. I've always wanted to know more but never really knew where to look since I'm in Ohio and have never been to Minnesota. In High School we had to write a play or novel based on a historic event and I wrote mine based on the fire and actually almost failed because my history teacher thought I made it up or that it was the Chicago fire that I meant to write about but placed it elsewhere. So, when I came across this book in a Listopia on Goodreads I ordered it immediately! Imagine my surprise when I found out not only was my family in the book (the Curries) but my Aunt was mentioned in it as well as she helped with some research!
I had pretty high hopes when that book landed at my door and was worried that it wouldn't live up to the kind of book I'd hoped it be. I had recently read The Children's Blizzard and while it was interesting, it wasn't quite as engaging as I had hoped it would be. My worries were for naught though as Under a Flaming Sky was not only informative but very engaging. While there is a bit of technical talk, it's all laid out so that anyone could understand it and it actually helps you place yourself in Hinckley and the surrounding areas during the fire. From the moment I picked up the book it was very hard to put it down - even the ending where he lists all of his sources was interesting to read! While the book doesn't quite go deep into depth with the survivors stories as I would have liked, this is definitely one of my favorite disaster/history books I've read and that is without the fact that if my family didn't survive the fire storm I wouldn't be here ;)
Definitely a highly recommended read to anyone that likes survival or disaster type stories about events in history!
I had pretty high hopes when that book landed at my door and was worried that it wouldn't live up to the kind of book I'd hoped it be. I had recently read The Children's Blizzard and while it was interesting, it wasn't quite as engaging as I had hoped it would be. My worries were for naught though as Under a Flaming Sky was not only informative but very engaging. While there is a bit of technical talk, it's all laid out so that anyone could understand it and it actually helps you place yourself in Hinckley and the surrounding areas during the fire. From the moment I picked up the book it was very hard to put it down - even the ending where he lists all of his sources was interesting to read! While the book doesn't quite go deep into depth with the survivors stories as I would have liked, this is definitely one of my favorite disaster/history books I've read and that is without the fact that if my family didn't survive the fire storm I wouldn't be here ;)
Definitely a highly recommended read to anyone that likes survival or disaster type stories about events in history!
October 23, 2022
“On September 1, 1894, two forest fires converged on the town of Hinckley, MN, trapping more than 2000 people. The fire created its own weather, including hurricane-strength winds, bubbles of plasma-like glowing gas, and 200-foot tall flames. As temperatures reached 1,600 degrees F, the firestorm knocked down buildings and carried flaming debris high into the sky. Two trains—one with every single car on fire—became the only means of escape. In all, more than 400 people would die, leading to a revolution in forestry management and the birth of federal agencies that monitor and fight wildfires.”
This book tells the true story of the 1894 Great Hinckley Firestorm, which burned 350,000 acres in 5 hours and killed over 400 people. It is the story of a logging town in Minnesota. Many of those logs provided additional fuel to the fire. The narrative provides a vivid sense of this disaster. It also presents the context and aftermath.
It is well-structured. The author builds suspense as the fire approaches the town. He portrays the panic people feel when they find themselves trapped. Brown has woven these stories together through researching diaries, letters, and news articles. It is filled with individual stories and acts of heroism.
“As she stepped outside an enormous blast of hot air slammed into the house, bowling mother and child over, tumbling them 25 or 30 feet into a nearby cornfield. Anderson ran to them and knelt beside the dazed mother, imploring her to let him take the baby. He’d save its life if he could save his own…She resisted at first, but then looked where Anderson was pointing at the wall of flame advancing toward them and thrust the baby into Anderson’s arms.”
Brown’s grandfather was a child when this fire hit town, so he had a personal interest in documenting this disaster. His grandfather survived but lost family members. It is scary, heart-wrenching, and sad, but also an excellent example of bringing a lesser-known piece of history to light.
This book tells the true story of the 1894 Great Hinckley Firestorm, which burned 350,000 acres in 5 hours and killed over 400 people. It is the story of a logging town in Minnesota. Many of those logs provided additional fuel to the fire. The narrative provides a vivid sense of this disaster. It also presents the context and aftermath.
It is well-structured. The author builds suspense as the fire approaches the town. He portrays the panic people feel when they find themselves trapped. Brown has woven these stories together through researching diaries, letters, and news articles. It is filled with individual stories and acts of heroism.
“As she stepped outside an enormous blast of hot air slammed into the house, bowling mother and child over, tumbling them 25 or 30 feet into a nearby cornfield. Anderson ran to them and knelt beside the dazed mother, imploring her to let him take the baby. He’d save its life if he could save his own…She resisted at first, but then looked where Anderson was pointing at the wall of flame advancing toward them and thrust the baby into Anderson’s arms.”
Brown’s grandfather was a child when this fire hit town, so he had a personal interest in documenting this disaster. His grandfather survived but lost family members. It is scary, heart-wrenching, and sad, but also an excellent example of bringing a lesser-known piece of history to light.
February 8, 2024
I had never heard of the Great Hinckley Fire. This is one of those history books that is screaming for a movie. The setup is right out of a hacky screenplay. Quiet logging town out in the center of the country. Wholesome people just doing what they can to make ends meet.
The logging town detail is crucial. We know now that the way logging was done in the 1800s created the perfect storm for a vicious fire to wipe out entire towns. In this case, that is exactly what happened.
Brown’s book gives you everything to truly feel everything that happens in the book. The sense of dread as the fire moves towards town. The panic as people begin to realize what they are up against. Most importantly, Brown highlights the many heroes who do absolutely incredible things under the worst of circumstances. This includes a train engineer who nearly dies holding the train as long as possible in order to save the maximum amount of people.
Everyone should have heard this story and I don’t know many people who have.
The logging town detail is crucial. We know now that the way logging was done in the 1800s created the perfect storm for a vicious fire to wipe out entire towns. In this case, that is exactly what happened.
Brown’s book gives you everything to truly feel everything that happens in the book. The sense of dread as the fire moves towards town. The panic as people begin to realize what they are up against. Most importantly, Brown highlights the many heroes who do absolutely incredible things under the worst of circumstances. This includes a train engineer who nearly dies holding the train as long as possible in order to save the maximum amount of people.
Everyone should have heard this story and I don’t know many people who have.
September 17, 2022
Chirp Books 8 hours 20 min. Narrated by Mark Bramhall (@)
For readers who are drawn to horror stories, this non-fiction book is for you. The narrator does an exceptional job in bringing the events realism. This book captures the essence of the sudden firestorm in Hinkley, Minnesota in September, 1894, which destroyed three small towns in a matter of hours.. The author presented a graphic storyabout how the perfect conditions led a terrible forest fire. Brown's book is well-researched in many areas.. First he explains the different types of forest fires and the conditions that weather conditions that led to their rapid expansion. He also goes into the psychology of the human mind that refuses to believe that today will be anything but ordinary. There are always heroes that arise in crisis; this story is no exception. The town of Hinkley is served by two railroads. Their crews provide escape for many, but can the trains outrun the maelstrom? I must admit I skipped part of the book that explained how burns affect the human body. The comparison of burn treatment in the late 19th century often did more harm than good.. Survivors and especially survivors of burns had to deal with emotinal trauma and Brown discusses this also. Brown's story is deeply personal because his great-grandparents experienced it.
For readers who are drawn to horror stories, this non-fiction book is for you. The narrator does an exceptional job in bringing the events realism. This book captures the essence of the sudden firestorm in Hinkley, Minnesota in September, 1894, which destroyed three small towns in a matter of hours.. The author presented a graphic storyabout how the perfect conditions led a terrible forest fire. Brown's book is well-researched in many areas.. First he explains the different types of forest fires and the conditions that weather conditions that led to their rapid expansion. He also goes into the psychology of the human mind that refuses to believe that today will be anything but ordinary. There are always heroes that arise in crisis; this story is no exception. The town of Hinkley is served by two railroads. Their crews provide escape for many, but can the trains outrun the maelstrom? I must admit I skipped part of the book that explained how burns affect the human body. The comparison of burn treatment in the late 19th century often did more harm than good.. Survivors and especially survivors of burns had to deal with emotinal trauma and Brown discusses this also. Brown's story is deeply personal because his great-grandparents experienced it.
March 18, 2016
What.a.book.
I just realized the other night that I’ve been back in my home state of Nebraska for a full year after a warm five year respite in the South. That means, since its now November, this is going to be my first full winter back. It started slow last year, which suited me fine, but it culminated in one 8 inch snow, and then a final 2 inch snow in the beginning of May. Now, for the first time in years, I’m going to sit through the whole thing. Already the temperatures swing back and forth, 30 one day, and 70 the next. You never know where you are going to land. The Midwest is a harsh place most of the year, and I can only imagine in days before actual houses and weather forecasting that it was terrifying. Even in the warmth and insulated safety of my house, the wind howls like mad outside, and there are times in the winter when I can understand why pioneers just walked out into the snow because they couldn’t take “the damn wailing of the wind” any longer. So as a sort of dark “welcome back” I officially nominate the 2013 Winter Reading Season as Natural Disaster and Survival themed reading. I would say that reading about the Hinckley forest fire kicked things off, but really, it’s gripping, white-knuckled narrative and wealth of information are what has inspired the season, rather than the other way around.
When I told my husband I was doing a themed Disaster reading he thought I’d lost my mind. He reminded me that I had to repeatedly put the book down, saying “Wow, that just got really hard to read” as the town slowly burned to death. Why would I want to continue? Because I learned so much. I had no idea. I knew nothing about ground fires and conflagration, or how fast these things could move, or how the convective air currents will hit the upper atmosphere, tip down, and start a new fire several miles away by blasting new trees with air in excess of 2,000 degrees. It makes you appreciate what forest fires do today, what people in other countries still have to deal with, the dangers of our current method of fire control in national parks. I was literally bubbling with information about forest fires, willing (unfortunately to those within earshot) to evangelize this new and fascinating knowledge to anyone. How could they not be just as curious? Its fire! It’s terrifying. It’s beautiful. It’s necessary and destructive.
And you read these kinds of stories and are very often filled with wonder and hope. The men stayed behind, ensuring that women and children got on the trains first; the conductors, trains on fire, one bleeding from the neck, held on to scorching hot metal to drive that train as fast and as far as they could from the fire. They were heroes. They risked themselves, their jobs, their futures, as they stood their ground in front of a literal mountain of flame. I honestly can’t say I’d do the same. Maybe I would. Maybe I wouldn’t. You cannot know until you’re faced with something like that, but you can be in awe. They stood their ground against the caveman and the biology and evolution for self-preservation, and won. And saved hundreds. Even when things were tragic, and they found parents curled around their children, it’s beautiful in the love and the sacrifice that they made. They tried to do everything to save their children, trying to take the pain from them. Reading about tragedies gives you a beautiful wonderful glimmer of what mankind can be like at its absolute best. Nothing can compare.
The narrative was told from the point of view of several people, each had different experiences during the fire, which provides a comprehensive look at the disaster. I have to admit that at times I became far too terrified for these “characters” that I logged onto the Hinckley Fire Museum webpage and read Dr. Stephan’s death list, to try and see who would come out alive. I was that stressed reading about the fire. After finishing the book I took out my New York Times Cover pages book, and though this page wasn’t in the book, I did find it on the cd’s that came with the book. I read through the New York Times article, comparing it to the book, to what I know now. It was a singular experience.
Now I’m moving on to those books which the author said inspired him and provided an outline for how a disaster book should be written . First up, the Perfect Storm.
To read my review of my Natural Disaster Themed read which included 10 different disaster books click link: Here!
I just realized the other night that I’ve been back in my home state of Nebraska for a full year after a warm five year respite in the South. That means, since its now November, this is going to be my first full winter back. It started slow last year, which suited me fine, but it culminated in one 8 inch snow, and then a final 2 inch snow in the beginning of May. Now, for the first time in years, I’m going to sit through the whole thing. Already the temperatures swing back and forth, 30 one day, and 70 the next. You never know where you are going to land. The Midwest is a harsh place most of the year, and I can only imagine in days before actual houses and weather forecasting that it was terrifying. Even in the warmth and insulated safety of my house, the wind howls like mad outside, and there are times in the winter when I can understand why pioneers just walked out into the snow because they couldn’t take “the damn wailing of the wind” any longer. So as a sort of dark “welcome back” I officially nominate the 2013 Winter Reading Season as Natural Disaster and Survival themed reading. I would say that reading about the Hinckley forest fire kicked things off, but really, it’s gripping, white-knuckled narrative and wealth of information are what has inspired the season, rather than the other way around.
When I told my husband I was doing a themed Disaster reading he thought I’d lost my mind. He reminded me that I had to repeatedly put the book down, saying “Wow, that just got really hard to read” as the town slowly burned to death. Why would I want to continue? Because I learned so much. I had no idea. I knew nothing about ground fires and conflagration, or how fast these things could move, or how the convective air currents will hit the upper atmosphere, tip down, and start a new fire several miles away by blasting new trees with air in excess of 2,000 degrees. It makes you appreciate what forest fires do today, what people in other countries still have to deal with, the dangers of our current method of fire control in national parks. I was literally bubbling with information about forest fires, willing (unfortunately to those within earshot) to evangelize this new and fascinating knowledge to anyone. How could they not be just as curious? Its fire! It’s terrifying. It’s beautiful. It’s necessary and destructive.
And you read these kinds of stories and are very often filled with wonder and hope. The men stayed behind, ensuring that women and children got on the trains first; the conductors, trains on fire, one bleeding from the neck, held on to scorching hot metal to drive that train as fast and as far as they could from the fire. They were heroes. They risked themselves, their jobs, their futures, as they stood their ground in front of a literal mountain of flame. I honestly can’t say I’d do the same. Maybe I would. Maybe I wouldn’t. You cannot know until you’re faced with something like that, but you can be in awe. They stood their ground against the caveman and the biology and evolution for self-preservation, and won. And saved hundreds. Even when things were tragic, and they found parents curled around their children, it’s beautiful in the love and the sacrifice that they made. They tried to do everything to save their children, trying to take the pain from them. Reading about tragedies gives you a beautiful wonderful glimmer of what mankind can be like at its absolute best. Nothing can compare.
The narrative was told from the point of view of several people, each had different experiences during the fire, which provides a comprehensive look at the disaster. I have to admit that at times I became far too terrified for these “characters” that I logged onto the Hinckley Fire Museum webpage and read Dr. Stephan’s death list, to try and see who would come out alive. I was that stressed reading about the fire. After finishing the book I took out my New York Times Cover pages book, and though this page wasn’t in the book, I did find it on the cd’s that came with the book. I read through the New York Times article, comparing it to the book, to what I know now. It was a singular experience.
Now I’m moving on to those books which the author said inspired him and provided an outline for how a disaster book should be written . First up, the Perfect Storm.
To read my review of my Natural Disaster Themed read which included 10 different disaster books click link: Here!
July 11, 2018
This book started off great with a lot of energy but, it could not keep that intensity going. I think what really made this book suffer the most was the lack of a real protagonist. Initially the chaos of jumping from one person to another to another helped add to the rushed and panicked feel of the story. As this continued to go I felt it hurt the story telling because I was not able to connect to any character.
I really liked his other two books (Boys in the Boat and Donner Party Bride) so I was excited to read this one and was sadly let down.
I really liked his other two books (Boys in the Boat and Donner Party Bride) so I was excited to read this one and was sadly let down.
January 2, 2019
I loved this book! My Dad recommended it to me along with my Sister. Unbelievable. It was a book I thought about and keep thinking about. Sad when it was over.
January 4, 2023
Grim and hard to read, but very well done. It's impossible as just a reader to fathom either the human suffering or the destructive force from a massive fire, but Under a Flaming Sky pulls no punches and does what it can to convey the scale of the horror.
The author (grandchild of a survivor) did a nice job of drawing at least some of the citizens and railroad workers as whole people with actual lives—not an easy task, but his extensive research pays off. It helps to approach the book with a little historical knowledge in place. Familiarity with the yellow journalism, robber barons, and racial animus of the late 19th century goes a long way to color in some of the context Brown hints at.
The author (grandchild of a survivor) did a nice job of drawing at least some of the citizens and railroad workers as whole people with actual lives—not an easy task, but his extensive research pays off. It helps to approach the book with a little historical knowledge in place. Familiarity with the yellow journalism, robber barons, and racial animus of the late 19th century goes a long way to color in some of the context Brown hints at.
September 16, 2018
I could almost categorize this under "horror," for all the people went through. I had never heard of this fire before reading this, although considering the number of deadly fires Brown describes later in the book, I suppose that's hardly surprising. Indeed, the thing that most impressed me from this book is the sheer number of decades that passed after this horrific event before restrictions were finally put in place on logging companies to try to avoid like catastrophes. Hundreds and hundreds of lives were lost over several decades from terrible fires because of man's tendency to destroy himself.... and to put the almighty dollar above the value of human (and other) life.
With several wildfires that have destroyed several hundred homes in my own part of the country in the last few years, it was especially interesting to read about how these massive fires are formed, and the immense advantages we have today of advance warning systems, even as simple as radio and television, not to mention social media. Relatively few lives were lost in the recent fires in my area, even if many homes were lost, because people were warned to evacuate long before the flames got near them. I do remember that one couple was caught in their own garage and burned while getting into their car, and I remember wondering how that was possible, when you can see the fire coming? This book put that more into perspective for me, both in the descriptions of how mechanically we can often act in times of crisis, and in the description of just how quickly this kind of inferno can spread, leaping ahead, causing explosions of ignition, sucking all of the oxygen out of the air.
As was my experience reading Brown's book on the doomed Donner Party, some of the descriptions were a little more detailed than I cared for (there's nothing quite like listening to accounts of the finding of charred bodies while trying to prepare family dinner), but the descriptions of how fire works, and yes, even kills, were still fascinating. I'd say that it should be required reading as a warning of better environmental awareness and care of our planet, if nothing else, if I thought it would make a difference... but since even the people of that time didn't listen to the warnings, it doesn't seem any more likely to deter people from destructive behaviors now than 100 (or 10,000) years ago.
With several wildfires that have destroyed several hundred homes in my own part of the country in the last few years, it was especially interesting to read about how these massive fires are formed, and the immense advantages we have today of advance warning systems, even as simple as radio and television, not to mention social media. Relatively few lives were lost in the recent fires in my area, even if many homes were lost, because people were warned to evacuate long before the flames got near them. I do remember that one couple was caught in their own garage and burned while getting into their car, and I remember wondering how that was possible, when you can see the fire coming? This book put that more into perspective for me, both in the descriptions of how mechanically we can often act in times of crisis, and in the description of just how quickly this kind of inferno can spread, leaping ahead, causing explosions of ignition, sucking all of the oxygen out of the air.
As was my experience reading Brown's book on the doomed Donner Party, some of the descriptions were a little more detailed than I cared for (there's nothing quite like listening to accounts of the finding of charred bodies while trying to prepare family dinner), but the descriptions of how fire works, and yes, even kills, were still fascinating. I'd say that it should be required reading as a warning of better environmental awareness and care of our planet, if nothing else, if I thought it would make a difference... but since even the people of that time didn't listen to the warnings, it doesn't seem any more likely to deter people from destructive behaviors now than 100 (or 10,000) years ago.
September 11, 2023
A two month long drought and extreme heat in Minnesota fostered the perfect conditions for wildfires. Fires started up in the pine forests due to those conditions and the logging practices in the area. A massive firestorm ran through the area from September 1 to September 6, 1894. The fire burned 200,000 acres of land, and destroyed several towns. The description of people trying to escape was very harrowing. Many people left via trains driven by two engineers, and that was also a harrowing part of the story. I cannot imagine being in that position, but I know if a smoldering train pulled into my station and told me to run, they wouldn't need to tell me twice. So many people just shrugged off the warning, only to become trapped by the fire not long after. This fire destroyed so much, including over 400 lives. The description of the devastation it caused was amazing. The fire was so hot that it melted wheels on train cars, warped tracks, and melted nails and other things together.
I grew up in a fire family, so books like this are always interesting to me. It is interesting to compare major fires like this one from long ago to the more recent ones, like the one that took out Paradise. I thought the author, who was a relative of one of the survivors of this fire, did a wonderful job of telling the story of these people in a way that let you feel like you knew them. He had the benefit of an inside track, but also did an amazing amount of research. I liked the photos that were included in the book, including the ones of what the place looked like before and after the fire, and even one of a site as it appeared at the time the book was published. I highly recommend this book.
I grew up in a fire family, so books like this are always interesting to me. It is interesting to compare major fires like this one from long ago to the more recent ones, like the one that took out Paradise. I thought the author, who was a relative of one of the survivors of this fire, did a wonderful job of telling the story of these people in a way that let you feel like you knew them. He had the benefit of an inside track, but also did an amazing amount of research. I liked the photos that were included in the book, including the ones of what the place looked like before and after the fire, and even one of a site as it appeared at the time the book was published. I highly recommend this book.
May 25, 2009
In late summer of 1894, towering flames stretching many miles wide ripped through a string of small communities in northern Minnesota, obliterating the towns and killing hundreds of people. In the town of Hinckley, people escaped on two trains, one of which was already in flames by the time it pulled out of the station in a desperate attempt to reach a lake 5 miles away.
Author Daniel Brown grew up with this story since his grandfather survived the fire as a child. If you liked The Children’s Blizzard you'll probably like this, too. Brown uses the same storytelling technique, weaving together the stories of individuals across the same timeline and adding lots of information about fires in general, the railroads, and logging. I sometimes lost track of what was happening to different people (it’s Minnesota so lots of Scandinavian names), and will probably read this again in a more leisurely way. I absolutely devoured it on this first read! Highly recommended for anyone who loves a good disaster. (Fans of Betsy-Tacy will appreciate the frequent mentions of James J Hill.)
Author Daniel Brown grew up with this story since his grandfather survived the fire as a child. If you liked The Children’s Blizzard you'll probably like this, too. Brown uses the same storytelling technique, weaving together the stories of individuals across the same timeline and adding lots of information about fires in general, the railroads, and logging. I sometimes lost track of what was happening to different people (it’s Minnesota so lots of Scandinavian names), and will probably read this again in a more leisurely way. I absolutely devoured it on this first read! Highly recommended for anyone who loves a good disaster. (Fans of Betsy-Tacy will appreciate the frequent mentions of James J Hill.)
June 24, 2017
Much like the story of the blizzard of 1888, it details how the fire started, how it affected people both physically and psychologically, and puts one in the middle of a mega fire storm. Great read!
June 24, 2025
I think I've heard of the Great Hinckley Fire once; after reading this, I'm a little bit surprised by that considering Hinckley is an hour away from my house, and I'm very familiar with the larger cities that played a role in this whole disaster. It was really cool to learn some Minnesota history, and it made me a bit homesick.
I thought the way it was told was very engaging as well, and I'm curious about Brown's research process; there were many details about what people were doing or thinking, and I'd be interested in seeing what survivor accounts look like. What really struck me is how inspiring the story was. Despite the horrific circumstances and mass panic, people still showed bravery and selflessness, going out of their way to protect others, and I really appreciated that.
Also, shout out to the girl named Josie who was only mentioned by name a couple of times. I was anxious about all the characters the story followed, but I was REALLY hoping she would make it out of there.
I thought the way it was told was very engaging as well, and I'm curious about Brown's research process; there were many details about what people were doing or thinking, and I'd be interested in seeing what survivor accounts look like. What really struck me is how inspiring the story was. Despite the horrific circumstances and mass panic, people still showed bravery and selflessness, going out of their way to protect others, and I really appreciated that.
Also, shout out to the girl named Josie who was only mentioned by name a couple of times. I was anxious about all the characters the story followed, but I was REALLY hoping she would make it out of there.
January 27, 2025
I listened to this one on audio. There was a lot I did not know about the Hinckley fire until now. The author tied in a lot of the science behind the fires, how our bodies heal from trauma and physical burns, etc. Trigger warning- this book goes into detail about bodies being burned in the fire and the fear and trauma surrounding the events.
September 1, 2025
The book was very detailed and included background information about massive firestorms and burn injuries that made it easier to comprehend the tragedy. It also set the place and time in history so that it was easier to understand what challenges the people had to overcome. Economics, immigration, racism and capitalism are all part of the story and the author deftly wove those into the story for a richer context.
A huge part of the book was the author put together individual stories of what the people and families did before during and after the fire. Although there were many victims there were also many heroes and responders to the fire that he included.
It was challenging for me to remember which families or people were left doing what and then read an update several pages later. It was definitely worth going back to recall the scenes because that’s what made the story engaging. (I listened to part of this as audio book, and read the book for remaining 1/2. Reading was much easier and I’d recommend that over audio book.)
The author’s personal family history to the event area gave it another unique angle. I’m familiar with the area and history of northern MN/WI but hadn’t realized the scale, frequency and causes and of fires in that era. I enjoyed learning more about that as part of this book.
This was the author’s first book and it was very good debut, and he was recognized for it in the state of Washington. I didn’t realize until after I read the book that he had continued to develop his craft and wrote several books including the NYT best seller: The Boys in the Boat.
I enjoyed this book and recommend it highly.
A huge part of the book was the author put together individual stories of what the people and families did before during and after the fire. Although there were many victims there were also many heroes and responders to the fire that he included.
It was challenging for me to remember which families or people were left doing what and then read an update several pages later. It was definitely worth going back to recall the scenes because that’s what made the story engaging. (I listened to part of this as audio book, and read the book for remaining 1/2. Reading was much easier and I’d recommend that over audio book.)
The author’s personal family history to the event area gave it another unique angle. I’m familiar with the area and history of northern MN/WI but hadn’t realized the scale, frequency and causes and of fires in that era. I enjoyed learning more about that as part of this book.
This was the author’s first book and it was very good debut, and he was recognized for it in the state of Washington. I didn’t realize until after I read the book that he had continued to develop his craft and wrote several books including the NYT best seller: The Boys in the Boat.
I enjoyed this book and recommend it highly.
July 31, 2025
Excellent read. Daniel James Brown is really talented at making you feel like you're in the midst of these terrible events that you really wish you weren't in the midst of because they're so terrible.
May 24, 2017
Under a Flaming Sky is a sad yet true story of a fire in Minnesota many years ago. It was recommended to me by a very close friend. I'm glad that he was able to share this sad, yet incredible story with me.
October 31, 2024
Lots of good research. I was about to accuse Brown of getting a bit sensational with some of the descriptions of the fire victims/bodies, but after reading some contemporary newspaper accounts for myself, I decided that he actually toned things down considerably. Still a difficult book to read.
November 16, 2023
I must have driven past Hinkley hundreds of times on the way back home from college, to visit from the Twin Cities after I married.
I have always wanted to stop at the museum, but do to time constraints was never able to before I moved completely out of state.
I had come across Daniel Brown before in his “The Boys in the Boat”, which I loved both in content and his style of writing about true events of history. From there I turned to his “The Indifferent Stars Above”, which is the horrific account of a survivor of the Donner Party.
However, to find his book about his Grandfather’s survival of the great Hinkley Fire, hit me personally. I lived in Two Harbors as a teenager and worked in the northern woods with a local forester, but also to cut cord wood for the wood burning stoves that heated our home.
The book really keeps you turning pages, and I couldn’t imagine two fires meeting up and destroying a complete town. Truly amazing that even the few surviving ones were able to make it.
Definitely recommend for those who love history, especially if your from Minnesota where it was.
I have always wanted to stop at the museum, but do to time constraints was never able to before I moved completely out of state.
I had come across Daniel Brown before in his “The Boys in the Boat”, which I loved both in content and his style of writing about true events of history. From there I turned to his “The Indifferent Stars Above”, which is the horrific account of a survivor of the Donner Party.
However, to find his book about his Grandfather’s survival of the great Hinkley Fire, hit me personally. I lived in Two Harbors as a teenager and worked in the northern woods with a local forester, but also to cut cord wood for the wood burning stoves that heated our home.
The book really keeps you turning pages, and I couldn’t imagine two fires meeting up and destroying a complete town. Truly amazing that even the few surviving ones were able to make it.
Definitely recommend for those who love history, especially if your from Minnesota where it was.
November 17, 2020
The greatest (wait, no...the happiest) surprise of my year might be that I've become a fan of a non-fiction writer named Daniel James Brown. In general, non-fiction is not my bag; I'm a fiction fan, the more fantastic the better. However, I love Jon Krakauer, and now I have another author to obsess over: DJB. Under a Flaming Sky came out before The Indifferent Stars Above (a masterpiece), and it's obvious he has grown as a writer since then, but it's still a hella good book that captures the sudden horror and power of the Hinckley fire. His images will stay burned (cough) into my memory forever, but his section about the inner narrative or script, and how it cost so many lives, will remain with me always. A loving ode to the people who were lost, a tribute to the brave people who survived and a warning as climate change grows ever more real, this is a must read for fans of non-fiction and fiction alive. It sears.
January 7, 2013
This was the first book on fires that I ever read. I never knew much about the dynamics of large fires or the power they possessed. They create their own weather!! Boiling hot rain, flame tornado's, high winds...... Despite my mild interest and lack of knowledge this book was incredible. I will never look at large scale fires the same. This is an amazing story and it definitely opened a whole new genre of books for me. I have read several books on fires now.... thanks to this book. Even if fires aren't your thing, like me, this may spark your interest as it has mine. If you like history, natural disasters, non-fiction, tragedy.... or just a good book, you should find this book very interesting.
April 18, 2018
The accounts in this book about the fire and the explanations about how a fire of this magnitude can form and spread are quite fascinating and interesting. My only problem with the book was that it got quite repetitive after a while, describing various people and groups of people and how they tried and mostly failed to run from the fire. A definitely tragic event, and interesting explanation about mass forrest fires, but it could have been told in 100 pages instead of 214.
January 28, 2019
Amazing. I didn’t fully comprehend this horrific fire until reading this well researched account. I should have known from the writing skills that this is the Boys in the Boat author.
Daniel James Brown expertly conveys the not only the human experience, but the science of fire, the logging industry that made this conflagration possible, the railroads that provided quick escape for some, and the medical realities of the victims.
Staggering
Daniel James Brown expertly conveys the not only the human experience, but the science of fire, the logging industry that made this conflagration possible, the railroads that provided quick escape for some, and the medical realities of the victims.
Staggering
May 13, 2019
Not the type of book I normally read but I was fascinated from the beginning. As someone who has always been very nervous about natural disasters, this book caught my attention and I am amazed that I have never heard of these events before. I give 5 stars to only a very select few books. I judge it on how much I keep thinking about the book afterwards and how much I continue to talk about the book with others.
August 28, 2019
Obviously a product of thorough research and very well written. The part I enjoyed was the detailed descriptions of lives and living conditions of the time (the end of the 19th century). What I didn't care for and cause me to quit half-way was the endless descriptions of the horrific fire and its effects on life and property. That part of the book seemed to go on and on and only varied by who was witnessing the fire and from what location.
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