Flu adds to fire’s toll Outbreak claimed many survivors’ lives

By Peter Passi ppassi@duluthnews.com

The devastating Oct. 12 fires could hardly have struck the Northland at a more vulnerable time, just as a virulent and deadly strain of influenza swept into the region.

Duluth and surrounding communities were bracing to deal with the outbreak in the very days leading up to the fire, said Dan Hartman, a local history buff and director of Glensheen Mansion.

“The craziest part of the fire is the flu, and that just days before the fire hits Duluth, the flu does. So the entire town goes into lockdown,” he said.

On Oct. 11, 1918, Duluth ordered the closure of nearly all major public gathering places — including churches, schools and theaters — to slow the deadly flu virus’ transmission. The following day, it even forbade public funerals, allowing only close family members of the dead to attend services.

But a more imminent threat loomed on that same date, as a series of fires converged into a massive blaze, killing 453 people and displacing thousands more. The survivors were pushed into crowded shelters, where influenza soon set in.

In its final report on the 1918 fire, the Minnesota Forest Fires Relief Commission said: “The influenza epidemic became severe in the fire-swept district soon after the relief work began. The crowding of refugees together, the weakening of the resistance through hardship and worry, the nervous strain put upon the people generally, whether they were directly affected by the fire or not, undoubtedly contributed to the spread of the disease.”

“Emergency hospitals were established, the commission taking over any building that could be made suitable for this purpose,” the report went on to say, noting that it was “compelled to operate four hospitals for a considerable period, the last one being closed in the fall of 1920.”

Hartman said Duluth was a natural magnet for people displaced by the fire.

“Everyone needed a place to go, and where would they go for aid? They all went into sites like the Duluth Armory and other large complexes,” he said.

The city of Superior also played a major role in providing assistance, with 4,699 “Minnesota refugees” of the fires counted Oct. 27, 1918, according to a report by the Superior Fire Relief Committee.

The report went on to describe the immediate aftermath: “The Health Committee reported that: It was handicapped by the absence of the considerable number of doctors in Army service and further embarrassed because the doctors here were already overtaxed in caring for influenza; there was a considerable number of injured among the fire sufferers and many cases of illness, most of them the result of exposure; all doctors of the town were giving their entire time, without rest; the hospitals were overcrowded; it was planned to open an emergency hospital the next morning; the number of hospital and other cases could not then be given; the doctors very much feared an influenza epidemic among the fire sufferers.”

The outcome for the Twin Ports was predictable, Hartman said: “So the flu just spikes, and it’s hard to tell the exact number of people who died between the flu and the fire. It was just a terrible tragedy.”

More than 100 documented deaths of fire survivors were directly attributed to the flu outbreak.

The Superior Fire Relief Committee said the number of disaster survivors exposed to the influenza “increased so greatly that very few families escaped it, for their strength and power to resist disease had been diminished by their suffering and exposure to fire and weather conditions. The work planned by the Superior Committee had to be postponed for a time because every available helper was needed to care for the fire sufferers who were ill.”

Of course when the fires struck, many Northland residents also were worried about the welfare of family members serving overseas in World War I.

Hartman set the scene, saying: “A lot of families are losing their loved ones at the time the flu shows up, and then the fire shows up. So, you have these three really dramatic events overlapping each other.”

The brutal war ended in November 1918, but many Northland veterans who survived combat would return home only to find family members dead, displaced or battling for life against the flu.

In 1918 alone, 281 deaths in Duluth were attributed to the flu outbreak — not all, but many likely related to to the fires.

The pandemic that began in 1918 lasted for more than two years and went on to kill more than 50 million people worldwide; 675,000 in the U.S. and more than 12,000 in Minnesota. u