Category: History: U.S.: Western

Copyright/published Year: 2009 by Houghton Mifflin

ISBN: 0618968415

Binding: Hardcover

Description:
On the afternoon of August 20, 1910, a battering ram of wind ì moved through the drought-stricken national forests of ì Washington, Idaho, and Montana, whipping hundreds of small blazes ì into a roaring inferno that destroyed towns and timber in an ì eye-blink. Forest rangers assembled nearly ten thousand ì men-college boys, day workers, immigrants from mining camps-to ì fight the fire. But no living person had seen anything like those ì flames, and neither the rangers nor anyone else knew how to ì subdue them.

Egan narrates the struggles of the overmatched rangers with ì unstoppable dramatic force. Equally dramatic is the larger story ì he tells of President Teddy Roosevelt and his chief forester, ì Gifford Pinchot. Pioneering the notion of conservation, Roosevelt ì and Pinchot did nothing less than create the idea of national ì forests as our national treasure, owned by and preserved for ì every citizen. The robber barons fought them, but the fire saved ì the forests even as it destroyed them: the heroism shown by the ì rangers turned public opinion permanently in favor of the forests ì even as it changed the mission of the Forest Service, with ì consequences felt in the fires of today.

The Big Burn tells an epic story, paints a moving portrait ì of the people who lived it, and offers a critical cautionary tale ì for our time.

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Categories: -3810-3830-3450-3832-3832-