How Now, Frowned at Cow?

Like all kids my age, I grew up with the legend of Mrs. O'Leary's cow starting the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. I long ago learned that that little factoid was made up, but I had never heard any other explanation for what started that conflagration. I had also heard of the Peshtigo, Wisconsin fire, though for some reason I had never realized that both fires occurred on the same night.

Last week I read this post from Marie, and she asks:

Did you know that on the night the Great Chicago Fire started, October 8, 1871, there were many more fires across the Upper Midwest?

Well, no I didn't. Marie points to a post from Barbara D'Amato that takes a look at a comet being the culprit for the many fires that raged that night across the Midwest:

The meteor theory was discounted for years, but recently Robert Wood, an aeronautical engineer and physicist who had worked for McDonnell Douglas and Douglas Aircraft, returned to the comet explanation with more up-to-date information.

Not the tail of the comet, but Biela’s Comet itself, which had split in two in 1845 and had been seen to be breaking up in its previous passes near the earth. The body of the comet, Wood says, was likely made up of frozen acetylene, methane, and other combustible gas. Heated by the friction of entry into the earth’s atmosphere and fed by the oxygen in our air, the chunks became enormous balls of fire.

I have no idea how sound that theory is, but it seems a reasonable possibility to me. Actually more plausible than the cow knocking over the lantern, which I have to say I was a bit skeptical of as a kid anyway. Even at age seven or so I was, like seriously? A cow?