Despite nearly 150 years separating them, the 19th-century Thumb-area fire and the California fires of January 2025 feature many commonalities, one historian of firefighting points out.

But before that, nearly 150 years ago this month, what may have been an even more deadly fire swept across Michigan’s Thumb, in Huron, Tuscola, Sanilac and Lapeer counties.

One historian says that Michigan’s Great Fire of 1881 in some ways still burns, offering lessons about how to prevent future fires as drought and other conditions make blazes more likely.

Most Michigan communities were settled by Americans only a few decades earlier, after all. The home of the “Great Fire of 1881” historical marker, Bay Port, was established in 1851, for example.