⇒ Read Gratis The Big Burn Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America Timothy Egan 9780618968411 Books

The Big Burn Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America Timothy Egan 9780618968411 Books

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The Big Burn Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America Timothy Egan 9780618968411 Books

Like the subtitle says, this wonderful work of non-fiction both tells the story of the great fires and heroism of those men and women who fought the fires, as well as the story of the National Forest System. The latter story fascinated me and a lover of the wilderness, a fan of Teddy Roosevelt, and a minor-league American history buff. We have much to thank to the early rangers and forest sentinels for the wilderness we enjoy.

As it happened, the woods were ablaze in Idaho, Washington, Montana and Oregon as I read Egan's piece. The areas of the great burn have recovered in part; new areas begin the cycle of destruction and recovery.


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The Big Burn Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America Timothy Egan 9780618968411 Books Reviews

This is another great read from Timothy Egan. He highlights an event in the history of our country I was not aware of, the burning of 3 million acres of forest in Idaho, Montana, and Washington states in 1910. There are really several stories woven together here, which is typical of his style. The story of the fire is the most riviting, but the surrounding history is also very imporant to understanding where we are today in terms of national lands and the fight to use/abuse them for their resource value versus saving them for future generations.
A drought dried out the land. The dry weather systems brought lightening. Then came the winds, the Palouse, named after the gently rolling waves of grass in Eastern Washington where they originate. Sound familiar? It is to those of us in the West who have had to run for our lives from wind whipped flames!
You meet the cast of characters, such as the robber Barron's and their bought and paid for politicians whose greed drives them to see no beauty in the natural world, only resources to exploit for profit. And profit they did! You meet Teddie Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, giants in the push to preserve lands undisturbed or minimally disturbed by commerce. You meet the first Rangers, underfunded, but idealistic in the shared vision to protect these majestic forests from the logging and mining interests, ever frothing at the edges, threatening to spoil the lands for their own selfish gain. Lastly, you meet the firefighters, a ragtag group of minimally trained foreigners and Americans, eager for a paycheck and a start in the fledgling US Forest Service. Most notable of these is Ed Pulaski, an assistant Ranger, a local, with varied skills, and a family and town of his own to protect. He was a hero, unsung in many ways, a tragic figure who will always be remembered by firefighters for the equipment he invented which still bears his name. He saved scores because of his knowledge of the local lands, his quick thinking, and his leadership.
As we fight a current drought in the West, and a never ending fire season, this book encourages us to remain humble before the very forces of nature which in the blink of an eye can destroy our hubristic endeavors.
Timothy Egan is a terrific storyteller, especially when he's giving us a history lesson. This very readable book recounts the biggest wildfire in American history, the 1910 conflagration in the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana and Idaho. To set the stage, Egan draws vivid portraits of the key players in the new conservation movement, among them Teddy Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot and John Muir, as well as those who opposed it. TR's successor, the feckless William Howard Taft, along with members of Congress beholden to big-money interests who viewed protection of millions of acres of wilderness a barrier to accumulating even more wealth, succeeded in defunding the nascent Forest Service, sewing the seeds of the disaster that followed in the drought-plagued summer of 1910. Comparisons to current-day political standoffs are inevitable. Riveting, suspenseful, often tragic, Egan's exhaustively researched account is every bit as compelling as "The Worst Hard Time," his book on the Dust Bowl. Highly recommended.
Rich background to 3.2 million acre forest fire, this book was a history lesson, a political lesson and a life lesson all rolled into one. I found Egan's writing evokes the sort of raw emotion of a good book while weaving in the difficult political and historical facts that provide context. You can smell the smoke, feel the heat and appreciate the political turmoil that the newly minted word 'conservation' meant to both Land barons and the rare people like Muir, Pinchot and especially Teddy Roosevelt.
I love reading about TR. Did not know about this fire in 1910. I love Montana, Idaho and Wyoming and our Natonal Parks, especially Yellowstone and Glacier and the history behind them. I knew that the lumber barrons and mine owners detested the idea of national parks and the formation of the Forest Rangers but this book really gives an indepth look of the people who wanted to preserve the lands in the western part of our country. I highly recommend this book!
The author, Timothy Egan, is an excellent reporter and columnist for The New York Times. Here with The Big Burn he reveals again how well he also writes history. In this case, the searing tale of the 1910 firestorm in the Northwest might have been lost to most Americans. Readers will find a wealth of information about not only the cataclysm itself but also what it represented for the management of the country’s forests, the development of fire prevention policies that held for decades, and the political will that a strong president exerted for wilderness preservation.

I especially appreciate the extensive research Egan undertook for this volume, poring over Forestry Service records, many newspaper accounts, and testimony from the people swept up in the horrendous fire and its aftermath. Readers become familiar with these individuals and care about the outcome for each of them. Egan’s writing is crisp, clear, and not overdone with a story that might easily prompt excess. The Big Burn is a compelling account, history at its best with a strong narrative and accessible analysis.

Michael Helquist, MARIE EQUI Radical Politics and Outlaw Passions
Like the subtitle says, this wonderful work of non-fiction both tells the story of the great fires and heroism of those men and women who fought the fires, as well as the story of the National Forest System. The latter story fascinated me and a lover of the wilderness, a fan of Teddy Roosevelt, and a minor-league American history buff. We have much to thank to the early rangers and forest sentinels for the wilderness we enjoy.

As it happened, the woods were ablaze in Idaho, Washington, Montana and Oregon as I read Egan's piece. The areas of the great burn have recovered in part; new areas begin the cycle of destruction and recovery.