Tuesday Teaser ~ Ghosts of the Fireground

Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: Grab your current readOpen to a random pageShare two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Several years ago, I started reading about smokejumpers as research for a story and got hooked on the (nonfiction) fire fighting genre. Currently, I'm reading Ghosts of the Fireground: Echoes of the Great Peshtigo Fire and the Calling of a Wildland Firefighter by Peter M. Leschak.

Book blurb:
On October 8, 1871, a wildfire of staggering immensity transformed the lumbering town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin (population 2,000), into a literal, burning hell. It was the deadliest fire in North American history. At least 1,200 people died, and the actual number of fatalities is unknown. Eighteen hundred square miles of woods, fields, and settlements were burned. By cruel coincidence, it was the very day and hour of the Great Chicago Fire.... The unlikely simultaneity of the two infernos has rendered Peshtigo unknown to most Americans.

My teaser:
Hot air rose in a plume to the upper reaches of the troposphere--perhaps to 30,000 feet or higher--generating a strong updraft that vacuumed surrounding flames into a rotating tornado of fire. To view that and live was remarkable, and few outside the river did.






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