(And the Lessons We Learned)
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1. Have you ever heard of the Great Chicago ______ (1871)?
2. It was a fire so big and out of control that it burned almost 4 square
miles of the ______ and even jumped across the Chicago River!
3. One story says that it started when a woman, named Mrs. O’Leary,
went to her barn to milk a cow and the cow kicked over her ______.
(The story was made up by a reporter; the start of the fire is unknown.)
4. The buildings in the city were mostly made of ______ and were built
buildings
very close together so it was easy for the fire to spread.
5. It is said that people didn’t react right away and that the ______ were
fireproof
tired from fighting a different fire the day before and made some mistakes.
6. The blaze grew so big that it destroyed the pumps for the waterworks (the
equipment
place that supplied the water to fight the fire) and the ______ was cut off.
7. Finally, after two days, the fire burned itself out, after destroying over 17,000
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______, killing hundreds of people and leaving about 90,000 others homeless.
8. Oddly, one of the buildings that didn’t ______ was the waterworks tower. It is still there today!
9. Today, we space buildings in the city farther apart and use more ______ materials like metals.
10. Our firefighters are better trained and have ______ that helps them fight fires more quickly.
Learning From the Past and Doing Better!
The Great Fire by Jim Murphy
Story of
the great
Chicago
fire of
1871:
works to
separate
fact from
legend.
wood
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Read about the fire to fill in the crossword puzzle:
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
by Sabrina Crewe & Adam Schaefer
Account of
a terrible fire
in a garment
factory in
1911 that
killed 146
people.
5
lantern
1
city
2
4
fire
6
8
burn
water
3
firefighters
Studying past fires, their causes and the problems we had fighting
them has led to many advances in materials, training and equipment.
To learn more, check out these books from your favorite library!
Catching Fire by Gena K. Gorell
Firefighting:
from bucket
brigades,
through the
years, up to
modern
firefighting
technology.
Firefighting: Behind the Scenes
by Maria
Mudd Ruth
Tools and
techniques
used to fight
fires now
and in
the past.
Newspaper Fun! Created by Annimills LLC c 2010
The Great Chicago Fire