NO it was NOT. It was caused by slash burning by the farmers clearing land and the slash left behind by wasteful logging in the day.
It all got together and away it went. That is why so many got caught in the fire. They were used to smelling the smoke from the slash and stump burning.
Bingo. Now if only we can put away the nonsense about the dinosaurs and a meteor.
Champion Wisconsin is a long way from there. Same night...
The Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help is now the only Marian shrine in the United States on the site of an approved apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
12 years after the apparitions, the same firestorm that devastated Peshtigo, Wisconsin threatened the Shrine....
(The short version)
The Sisters, the children, area farmers and their families fled to the Shrine’s chapel for protection from the unprecedented fire. In defiance of the inferno, they lifted the statue of Mary and carried it around the sanctuary. When wind and fire threatened suffocation in one direction, they turned in another direction to pray. Hours later, a downpour began to extinguish the raging fire. The area surrounding the Shrine’s grounds was destroyed and desolate. Though the fire charred the chapel fence, it had not harmed the chapel grounds. The only livestock to survive the fire were the cattle farmers led to the chapel. Though the chapel well was only a few feet deep, it gave the cattle outside all the water they needed to survive the fire, while many deeper wells in the area went dry.