Year of the Fires
Subtitle
The Story of the Great Fires of 1910
The wildfires of the summer of 1910 scorched millions of acres in the Western states, depositing soot as far away as Greenland. Through the experiences and words of rangers, soldiers, politicians, scientists and the volunteers who fought the fires and were forever scarred by them, acclaimed historian and former forest firefighter Stephen Pyne tells the story of that catastrophic year and its indelible legacy on the firefighting policies of today.
Bio
Stephen J. Pyne is a Regents' Professor for ASU's School of Life Sciences. He has written over 30 books, mostly on the history and management of wildland and rural fire, including big-screen surveys for the U.S., Canada, Australia, Europe and the world generally, and is completing a multi-volume fire history of the U.S. and its regions since 1960.
Praise for this book
Pyne's muscular style is perfectly suited . . . and his dramatic history lesson is an important corrective to America's recent fire blindness.
Outside
The terrible wildfires of 1910 in the Rocky Mountains determined forestry doctrine for most of the twentieth century. Pyne, a history professor who fought forest fires for fifteen summers, writes like a master. His account is full of thrills, scares, and heroics, but it is not simply a popular adventure story. Pyne demonstrates the ways that the political process decides ecological policy, determining not only what is done but by whom, and for how much money.
The New Yorker
