Nice song there, Ken--and a good, detailed account, at least from what I have read, of the occurance--what is the melody?

As mentioned above, the Peshtigo Fire was overshadowed by the Chicago Fire, and has been generally forgotten--It was not a isolated incident however--that same year, there were many other fires that swept through the midwestern forests--and there were many other fire years through the last decades of the nineteenth century--Michigan's prominent "Thumb" region, now a rather stark plain, was forest that was wiped out in a single year--

These were our first eco-catastrophes, and though the old newspaper accounts are horrifying, the stories stories were soon forgotten--anyone know of any other fire ballads?