By State › Wisconsin

Wisconsin: Overview

Download all of Wisconsin as PDF Print

Everything in the main manual and the skill guides applies in Wisconsin exactly as written. What’s different here is the specific hazard profile and the state, local, and legal context around it. This page is the starting point; the other three pages under Wisconsin go deeper on laws, local resources, and the data behind the risks named here.

The Peshtigo Fire: the deadliest wildfire in American history, largely forgotten

On October 8, 1871, a firestorm swept through Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and the surrounding countryside, killing at least 1,152 people, the deadliest wildfire in recorded U.S. history, far deadlier than California’s January 2025 firestorm covered elsewhere on this site. It happened on the exact same night as the Great Chicago Fire, 260 miles south, and has been overshadowed by it in public memory ever since despite killing several times as many people. See the Risks page for the full data.

The 1984 Barneveld tornado: Wisconsin’s first F5 in 26 years

Modern Wisconsin still carries real tornado risk: on June 8, 1984, an F5 tornado struck Barneveld, killing 13 people and causing $40 million in damage, the state’s first F5-rated tornado since a deadly 1958 outbreak in the Chippewa Valley. Wisconsin’s tornado risk is real but episodic, long gaps between the most violent tornadoes rather than a constant, low-level threat.

What this means for how you use the rest of this manual

The manual’s Tier structure and the skill guides apply without modification. What’s different in Wisconsin: wildfire risk isn’t confined to the arid West, Peshtigo demonstrates that a fast-moving firestorm can happen in forested Midwest terrain under the right drought and wind conditions, and tornado preparedness deserves real weight even in a state that doesn’t experience violent tornadoes every year, since the ones that do occur here can be catastrophic.

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