Longfellow’s wife died in a fire similar to the ones described here.
http://www.hwlongfellow.org/life_elder.shtml
Thank you for posting. I never knew that. I found another page that said she caught fire from an ember from the fireplace and that his attempts to put the fire out scarred his hands and face. He wrote one poem about his grief 18 years later titled “Cross of Snow.” There’s a picture (link below with the poem) that shows a cross of snow on a mountainside that he once saw and in his poem, said that he bore across his heart from the day of her death. Touching and sad.
http://www.english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/longfellow.html