Fire Prevention Week on October, 2024: where can we find fire prevention week activities?

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National Fire Prevention Week is observed in the United States and Canada, during the week (from Sunday to Saturday) in which October 9 falls.

Log onto NFPA's web page and hit the heading for fire prevention week. There you will find info for any age, its free and if your towns Fire Prevention budget is the same as mine $0 its good info and the price is right.

The Chicago Fire was real...right?

Yes, the Fire was real, big, and hot. National Fire Prevention Week commemorates the fire and always includes the Fire's anniversary. Hence all the school fire drills the first week in October.

The Great Fire started in the O'Leary barn in the evening on October 8, 1871, but firefighters were slow to react (they had spent the day before battling a fire that destroyed 4 blocks just west of the river) and never gained control of the blaze. So it burned until rain put it out on October 10. It completely devastated the city from the O'Leary property (just north of what's now Roosevelt Road, at Jefferson St.) north and east to what's now Lincoln Park, a shade north of Fullerton near the lake. The fire burned incredibly hot; descriptions of it suggest that it became a firestorm, an incredibly hot cyclone of fire feeding off the drought-stricken, wooden city. All of downtown was destroyed. 90,000 of Chicago's 300,000 people were rendered homeless. 200-300 people died in the fire; many bodies, incinerated by the fire, were never recovered. Photographs of the destruction, particularly overviews of the ruined downtown are just unbelievable.

The story spread before the fire was out that Mrs. O'Leary's cow was the cause of the fire, as it started in the barn. But that story was made up by a newspaper reporter. A recent book, researching back to the original investigation of the fire, convincingly argues that the cause was a person, Daniel "Pegleg" Sullivan, not a cow. The author has a website with an outline of his case here:

Some think that a meteorite impact started the fire. They base this on the fact that there were several large, destructive fires in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan that all began on the same day. The Peshtigo, Wisconsin, Fire that day was even bigger, destroying the entire town, and killing over 1,400 people. But the more likely cause for all the fires was simply that the region was in the grip of a severe drought along with higher than average temperatures and high winds (sounds a lot like the annual fires in California).

This Historical Society link is the best site on the fire on the web. It was originally the online counterpart to an long gone exhibit a decade ago on how the fire was remembered. The web site won awards at the time it went up back in 1996. So it's also a good lesson on how the web has matured over the years.

This site has little text on the fire, but does have an overview image that can be zoomed and explored.

Wikipedia has info too:

how do i find out about fire prevention month?

Fire Prevention Month is October. Technically, it's just Fire Prevention Week. The week falls on the aniversary of the Great Chicago Fire.

More information can be obtained by visiting the National Fire Protection Association's web site. The NFPA is the orginization that decides each year what the theme will be.

They usually have the information and theme up by June.