List of Michigan wildfires

The Meridian Boundary Fire burned 8,586 acres near Grayling, Michigan in 2010.

The U.S. state of Michigan has been the site of several major wildfires. The worst of these were in the lumbering era of the late-1800s when lumbering practices permitted the buildup of large slash piles and altered forest growth patterns which may have contributed to size of the wildfires. The scattered nature of settlements, lumber camps and Indian tribes during this time lead to large uncertainties in determining the number of deaths and property losses. More recent fires have been much smaller and contained by modern firefighting methods with better records of the destruction they caused. Almost all of the thousands of yearly fires in the state are only a few acres, although 100-200 homes are damaged each year by these small fires. ^[1]

Wildfires

This is a partial and incomplete list of wildfires in the US state of Michigan.

Fire	Date	Location	Size (acres)	Size (km2)	Damage	Deaths	Notes
Great Michigan Fires	1871 October 8	multiple locations	over 1,500,000	over 6,000	thousands	hundreds	fires across Wisconsin, Michigan, and the cities of Holland, Manistee and Chicago
Port Huron Fire of 1871	1871 October 8	The Thumb	1,200,000	4,850	thousands	50+	same day as Great Michigan fire
Peshtigo Fire	1871 October 8	Menominee County, Michigan	hundreds of thousands	hundreds	thousands	dozens [2]	same day as The Great Chicago fire
Thumb Fire	1881 September 5	The Thumb	1,000,000	4,000	over 2,000 structures	282
Ontonagon Fire	1896 August	Ontonagon	228,000	923	hundreds	1	[3]
Ishpeming fire	1896 October	Ishpeming	64,000	259	unknown	unknown	[4]
Metz Fire	1908 October 15	Metz	300,000	1,200	hundreds of structures	37 [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]	15 deaths occurred when the rescue train derailed in a burning lumber siding
Au Sable-Oscoda Fire	1911 July 11	Iosco County	thousands	dozens	hundreds	5+	Acreage burned unclear because of numerous fires burning the area that year [13]
Seney Fire	1976 August - October	Seney National Wildlife Refuge	78,000	316	0	0	burned for months underground in peat
Mack Lake fire	1980 May 5	Mio	25,000	101	44 homes	1	[14]
Meridian Boundary Fire	2010 May	Crawford County	8,586	34.7	12 homes, 39 structures	0	Caused by a man burning leaves, the man had a permit to burn.
Duck Lake fire	2012 May–June	Luce County	21,000	85	136 structures	0
Sleeper Lake Fire	2007 August	Luce County	18,000	73	0	0
Horne Fire	2021 August	Isle Royale	300		0	0	Primarily burned the area surrounding Monument Rock
Blue Lakes Fire	2022 May	Montmorency, Cheboygan Counties	2,516	>10		0	This wildfire started from a lightning strike on May 11 which smoldered for several days before igniting nearby fuels (leaves, grass, bushes). [15]
Wilderness Trail Fire	2023 June	Crawford County	2,442	12.1	$100,000	0	Caused by a campfire, 85% contained as of June 4. [16]

See also

• Michiganportal

Gallery

• 
  Oscoda Fire of 1945
• 
  Areal photo of the Blue Lakes Fire on May 14, 2022

References

1. Wildfires and Firewise, Michigan State University, 02/03/2012
2. 21 dead listed by name from Birch Creek, near Menominee, JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Session, 1873, MADISON, WIS.
3. The Forests of Michigan, Donald I. Dickmann, Larry A. Leefers, University of Michigan Press, 2003, p. 164
4. The Forests of Michigan, Donald I. Dickmann, Larry A. Leefers, University of Michigan Press, 2003, p. 165
5. MAJOR POST-LOGGING FIRES IN MICHIGAN: the 1900's Michigan State University Extension Service adapted from Betty Sodders' book, "Michigan on Fire", and from various issues of Michigan History magazine. Finally, parts of the text above have been paraphrased from C.M. Davis’ Readings in the Geography of Michigan (1964). "Fires, part II".
6. Metz Remembers, The Alpena News , Mike Modrzynski, October 12, 2008
7. "Fires, part II".
8. Nagel, Herbert (1979). The Metz Fire of 1908, Presque Isle County, Michigan: The Most Destructive Forest Fire in the History of Modern Michigan. Presque Isle County Historical Society.
9. Dickmann, Donald I.; Leefers, Larry A. (July 19, 2016). The Forests of Michigan (Paperback) (Revised ed.). University of Michigan Regional. pp. 168–169. ISBN   9780472036530.
10. Sodders, Betty (1997). Weeks, Don (ed.). Michigan on Fire. Michigan on Fire Series. Vol. 1 (Illustrated ed.). Thunder Bay Press. pp. 279, 298, 310. ISBN   9781882376520. ISBN 1882376528.{{cite book}}: horizontal tab character in |id= at position 5 (help)
11. "Historical Marker - S299 - The Metz Fire (Marker ID#:S299)" (PDF). Retrieved February 16, 2025.
12. Fancy, Marisa. "The Metz Fire". Northern Michigan History. Retrieved February 16, 2025.
13. The Forests of Michigan, Donald I. Dickmann, Larry A. Leefers, University of Michigan Press, 2003, p. 168
14. Wildfire History, Michigan State University, 10/17/2011, accessed July 14, 2012
15. "Blue Lakes Fire 98 percent contained". www.michigan.gov. Retrieved May 17, 2022.
16. Washington, Elizabeth (June 4, 2023). "DNR: 85% of 3,000-acre wildfire trail caused by campfire in Northern Michigan is contained". ClickOnDetroit. Retrieved June 4, 2023.

Bibliography

• Hanines, D. A.; Sando, R. W. (1969), Climatic Conditions Preceding Historically Great Fires in the North Central Region (PDF), U.S.D.A. Forest Service Research Paper NC-34; see Figure 1., archived from the original (PDF) on February 8, 2012, retrieved July 14, 2012