Great Chicago Fire | We Are Going to Have a B...

Just before midnight on October 8, 1871, the inferno that had ravaged Chicago’s West Side leapt the Chicago River. A wall of flames surged toward downtown, threatening to devour Chicago’s most magnificent hotels, offices, and government buildings. Mayor Roswell B. Mason raced to ...  Show more

As dawn broke on October 10, 1871, the dazed survivors of the Great Chicago Fire stumbled through their burned and battered city. A 30-hour inferno had reduced Chicago to ashes.Homes and business were replaced by gaping holes and smoldering rubble. Tens of thousands of people had ...  Show more

In the summer of 1910, a severe drought turned Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene National Forest into a tinderbox. Spot fires cropped up around the mining towns of Wallace and Avery and it was the job of forest rangers like Ed Pulaski to put them out. But when a massive windstorm swept throu ...  Show more

In the early morning of November 8, 2018, a faulty electrical line sparked a fire in the woods of Butte County, California. Spurred on by high winds and dry brush from extreme drought, the fire spread faster than anyone had ever seen before. In a little over an hour, it arrived i ...  Show more

Who’s to blame for The Great Chicago Fire?This week, The Alarmist (Rebecca Delgado Smith) welcomes comedian Benny Blue to discuss the unfortunate circumstances that led to Chicago’s biggest and deadliest fire and the nasty rumors about its origins which circulated the country for ...  Show more

Join Greg Jenner in 17th-century London as an out of control fire razes much of the city to the ground. Why did it spread so quickly? Why wasn't it extinguished immediately? And why didn't anyone make the most of the opportunity to build a better London?The Historical Consultant ...  Show more