Question
1. (1) How could a fire that started in a cowshed become a raging inferno that destroyed several square miles of a great American city and killed hundreds of people? (2) There are several reasons why a barn blaze on the night of October 8, 1871 became the Great Chicago Fire. (3) One reason is that, although the blaze started around 9:00 P.M. that Sunday, the city’s fire department didn’t receive the first alarm until 9:40 P.M. (4) Another reason is that strong winds were blowing from the southwest, driving the blaze toward the heart of the city in the northeast. (5) Finally, the fire was fed by an abundance of fuel in the closely packed wood buildings, wooden ships lining the Chicago River, the city’s elevated wood-plank sidewalks, and the commercial lumber and coal yards along the river. (6) By the time the fire burned out on Tuesday, October 10, it had destroyed $222 million in property and left 100,000 people homeless.
The implied main idea is that