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The Big Burn is a favorite of mine. Covers the 1910 fires out west. Crazy stuff, has the back story on Ed Pulaski.
The Big Burn by Timothy Egan does a great job of explaining the early history of the Forest Service and the circumstances of the huge fire in 1910 that absolutely wrecked Wallace, ID and the rest of the Silver Valley. That fire had a huge impact on agency policy (at least for a while).
My personal favorite, however, is Norman Maclean’s Young Men and Fire. The language is vigorous and poetic, the author (a lifelong Montanan) has personal experience fighting fire, and it goes into great detail about the events and background leading up to the Mann Gulch Fire of 1949, in which 12/15 members of a crew of smokejumpers perished due to a terrain trap.
These.
The Big Burn doubles as a trace of the transformation of federal forestry policies. It trails off heading into the 60’s/70’s, but is foundational for understanding just how fucked up things are on where we stand on standing timber today.
Norman Maclean also wrote A River Runs Through It. It’s a minute since I read Young Men and Fire, but if I recall correctly, it’s foundational regarding cautions and watchouts. We had an instructor years ago who started every annual red card refresher by unpacking Mann Gulch.
The Big Burn was all right, but the primary sources he lists are a lot more entertaining if you can find them.
Young Men and Fire is good but Norman Maclean died before finishing it and I think that shows at the end. It kinda feels incomplete and like it trails off. Still, a required read for FFs. But I'd even more so recommend his son John Maclean's Fire on the Mountain about South Canyon. I think there are more relevant lessons in there then Young Men and Fire.
They gave me pocket book with a helicopter on it. That’s all i got for ya
Hahaha. I love it. I have my IRPG too. 🤣
Steven Pyne’s books are great, Fire: A Brief History is a good place to start. I don’t know of a book that deals super well with weaving Indigenous fire use and history into the story. Pyne does talk about that as I remember but books like 1491 and An Indigenous Peoples History of the US are good compliments to better understand the depth of Native history and relationship to land, including fire.
This is a bit different, but I have a lot of appreciation for this scientific article: “The human dimension of fire regimes”
Basically looking at the human relationship with wildfire, it goes back farther than we think. Puts RX treatment into perspective
John maclean has written good books about tragedy fires, most notably fire on the mountain about South canyon. I heard somewhere that he is allegedly working on one last tragedy fire book about the history of hotshot crews while also talking about granite mountain, but there isn't any recent information about that, so who knows.
Everything by Stephen Pyne for well documented US fire history and policy. His most recent book Pyrocene: How We Created an Age of Fire, and What Happens is where you should start. Somebody here recommended Fire: A Brief History but it's
already a little dated and isa very dense read. Pyrocene is much better and came out in 2022. His book To The Last Smoke... and his A Fire Survey series is really great to zone in on specific areas of the country. (edit: Oops, missed that Pyne put out an updated edition of A Brief History in 2019.)John Maclean (Norman's son) has done a FANTASTIC job at writing about some very important fires - mostly fatalities that are big lessons learned or policy shifting events. I recommend EVERYBODY in wildfire read Fire on the Mountain: The True Story Of The South Canyon Fire which is about the 1994 South Canyon Fire and the 15 FFs killed on that. But he also wrote The Thirtymile Fire: A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal about the Thirtymile Fire that killed 4 FFs in 2002, The Esperanza Fire: Arson, Murder and the Agony of Engine 57 about the 2006 Esperanza Fire which killed 5 FFs, and River of Fire: The Rattlesnake Fire and the Mission Boys about the 1956 Rattlesnake Fire which killed 15 FFs.
ANYBODY IN LEADERSHIP IN THE WILDLAND FF WORLD FROM SQUADIES ON UP SHOULD READ ALL JOHN MACLEAN'S BOOKS!!! They will change the way you and your crew behave on fires.
M.R. O'Connor released Ignition: Lighting Fires in a Burning World this past fall and it's a good read about the current state of the wildfire landscape socially and politically.
Tim Eagan's Big Burn is mentioned here as a great read but he's a novelist and opinion columnist and not a journalist. It shouldn't be taken as literal fact. There's some embellishment in there meant to make a good story. Still a fun read though.
edit: I can't forget to make the requisite r/wildfire shitpost of: "YoU gUyS cAn ReAd!!?? HaR hAr Har!!!"
Jumping Fire by Murry A. Taylor
Great fucking book
If you're interested in the Australian perspective:
Burn: The Epic Story of Bushfire in Australia: Collins, Paul: 9781921640186: FIRE: Firestorm: Battling Super-Charged Natural Disasters, Greg Mullins. Anything by Tim Pyne.
I'll Never Fight Fire With My Bare Hands Again- its great and read it on fire.
Peshtigo fire, I forget the book name but there is a few out there.-reminder that the midwest can burn.
Watch “Fire Wars” on YouTube. Badass documentary about Hotshots from the VHS days
https://youtu.be/BTT0dK90z44?si=XNzTu2S6xRrGAnRj
Smokejumper by Jason A. Ramon. Great book.
Wildfire: A Century of failed forest policy