Tending Fire: Coping with America's Wildland Fires

"Tending Fire" by Steve Pyne is a landmark work. Modern society has lost its connection to the natural world, a connection that our ancestors depended upon and nurtured with fire. Pyne reveals the price of our foolish Faustian bargain to ignore our fire roots, and how our self-proclaimed "sophisticated" culture is continually staggered by natural forces we have forgotten how to deal with. Pyne's point is that man is a fire creature, unique among animals in our ability to create fire and to manipulate our world with fire. Our disconnect from our fire roots has had unfortunate consequences, including the catastrophic destruction of our forests and the wholesale alteration of other ecosystems. If we do not relearn how to tend fire, to produce it where and when we need to, then we will not be able to prevent or control the most destructive fires, the firestorm holocausts that threaten rural and urban America alike. Plus, Pyne is a poet, a master wordsmith, and tons of fun to read.

Each summer wildfires destroy American communities and wreck havoc - yet there are 'good' fires, too: those which restore habitats and strike habitats which rely on them for ecological balance. How to cope? Stephen Pyne is an expert on fire, having spent fifteen seasons fighting fires in the Grand Canyon: he outlines in Tending Fire: Coping With America's Wildland Fires, a new paradigm for viewing American wildland fires, discussing the history of fires and human habitats around the world, and contrasting the pros and cons of current fire politics in the last decade.