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I think the author of “The Great Conflagration” described the Great Chicago Fire in a way that was simple and easy to understand. It was like she was telling a narrative! (Yes, I know she was.) What I found the most interesting besides how pleasant the narrative was to read was the way Bessie Bradwell Helmer started her narrative by quoting A.T. Andreas, “‘Nature had withheld her accustomed measure of prevention, and man had added to the peril by recklessness.'”
This quote leads the debate on whether or not the fire was caused naturally or unnaturally. But Helmer leaves her audience to figure that out themselves, affirming her position of just simply retelling the events of the fire chronologically. She admits that “the exact particulars of [the fire’s] origin are unknown” but comically adds that “a kick from a cow would have been sufficient” to start a fire. Her first dab at whether this event was natural or unnatural but really just offering a suggestion. That does leave us to ask several questions though such as, if a cow was really the perpetrator, is the fire a natural fire? Who would leave a cow there in the first place? Who could have put fire near a cow? Does the inclusion of humans make the fire not natural? Are humans not part of nature and therefore actions of humans are natural? One concern spirals into a large debate of naturalness or unnaturalness, a debate that still goes on today.
We are inclined to believe that Chicago Fire is unnatural however, but only because of the way people added to the severity of the fire although not intentionally. Harking back at A.T. Andreas’ quote, the people who designed the city never expected fires that catastrophic therefore the “wooden everything” constructed by city planners made the situation immensely worse. So even though the fire was caused naturally (or unnaturally), the severity of the fire was caused by the mishaps of humans therefore, human intervention was detrimental. Quoting erodriguez317, “everything built was human made which makes it unnatural on how the fire spread.” I agree with this sentiment.