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On October 8, 1871, a firestorm destroyed the lumber town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and swept through the surrounding towns, killing an estimated 1,200 to 2,400 people. That makes it the deadliest wildfire in American history. Survivors lived by standing in the Peshtigo River for hours while the air above them burned, and some who sheltered in the wooden boarding house or near the river's edge died anyway.
The Chicago fire the same night killed about 300 people, yet it absorbed national coverage and relief. Chicago was a telegraph hub and a commercial center. Peshtigo's telegraph line burned and the town sat in a remote hinterland, so news came out days late. Which disaster a nation remembers depends on who controls the communication channels, not on the death toll.
Logging companies clear-cut the forests and left huge piles of slash, meaning dried branches and debris. Railroads cleared land by burning it. A severe drought turned this waste into continuous fuel around settlements built largely of wood, with sawdust in the streets.
When many fires merge over enough dry fuel, the rising column of superheated air draws in hurricane-force winds from all sides. These winds feed the blaze and create fire whirls, which can throw burning debris ahead of the main front. At that point flight becomes nearly useless, because the fire moves faster than people can run and ignites things ahead of itself. The same mechanism was later studied in wartime incendiary bombing.