Very interesting, TEd. I've read some discussion of why it should be that the Chicago Fire lives on, in popular recall, far more than the Peshtigo fire. The thesis, as I recall, is that people were familiar with the idea of large fires in forested rural areas, but the destruction of an intensely urbanized area was something very new, unfamiliar and frightening.

The human cost, in each case, is measured not just in the immediate loss of life, but the terrible, continuing disruption for the survivors.