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]
| 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 | |
| 1871 October 8 | 1,200,000 | 4,850 | thousands | 50+ | same day as Great Michigan fire | |||
| 1871 October 8 | hundreds of thousands | hundreds | thousands | dozens[2] | same day as The Great Chicago fire | |||
| 1881 September 5 | 1,000,000 | 4,000 | over 2,000 structures | 282 | ||||
| Ontonagon Fire | 1896 August | 228,000 | 923 | hundreds | 1 | [3] | ||
| Ishpeming fire | 1896 October | 64,000 | 259 | unknown | unknown | [4] | ||
| Metz Fire | 1908 October 15 | 300,000 | 1,200 | hundreds of structures | 37[5] | 15 deaths occurred when the rescue train derailed in a burning lumber siding | ||
| Au Sable-Oscoda Fire | 1911 July 11 | thousands | dozens | hundreds | 5+ | Acreage burned unclear because of numerous fires burning the area that year[6] | ||
| Seney Fire | 1976 August - October | 78,000 | 316 | 0 | 0 | burned for months underground in peat | ||
| Mack Lake fire | 1980 May 5 | 25,000 | 101 | 44 homes | 1 | [7] | ||
| 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. | |
| 2012 May–June | 21,000 | 85 | 136 structures | 0 | ||||
| 2007 August | 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).[8] | ||
| Wilderness Trail Fire | 2023 June | Crawford County | 2,442 | 12.1 | $100,000 | 0 | Caused by a campfire, 85% contained as of June 4.[9] | |
| Oats Fire | 2023 June | Iosco County | 200 | $500,000 | 0 | Another fire which started during the beginning of June, was contained June 3.[10] |