Forgotten Fires of Chicago

A historical journey through the city’s catastrophic fires, and the stories of the heroes who fought them. Chicago’s war against cinder, flame, and smoke did not end with the Great Fire of 1871. In 1909, fire ripped through the dynamite room of a staging facility a mile and half off the Lake Michigan shoreline, transforming the pipe-laying operation into a raging inferno. During the World’s Columbian Exposition, thousands of fairgoers watched in horror as twelve firefighters were trapped in a bl