The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America

In "The Big Burn", author Timothy Egan skillfully weaves the story of a massive August 1910 forest fire in Idaho and Montana into the histories of the U.S. Forest Service and the conservation movement. The book begins with its two leading characters, Theodore Roosevelt and his close friend, forester Gifford Pinchot. The reader who is unfamiliar with either of these two will receive a superficial biography which enables him or her to understand their roles in the forestry and conservation contribution to the Progressive Era. TR was the outdoorsman who strove to preserve natural resources and wilderness areas for future generations. Pinchot was the wealthy heir who invented the forestry profession and made it the cause of his life. It was Pinchot who taught TR how to protect virgin timber from the lumber industry. This book illustrates the forces and personalities which contended over the issues concerning the preservation or utilization of America's timber resources. Among those opposing TR and Pinchot were President William Howard Taft and timber interest defenders, Montana Senator William Clark and Idaho Senator Weldon Heyburn. The conservationists' disputes were not all fought against industrialists. Pinchot, who favored wise use of the forests, would even clash with his mentor, John Muir, who preferred uncompromising preservation. After laying out the tale of the conservation efforts, Egan switches to stories of the settlers and Forest Rangers who fought against and live through or died in the Big Burn. These are stories of heroism and tragedy, survival and death. The title says that this is about "Teddy Roosevelt & The Fire That Saved America." As I was reading about the fire, I wondered how he was going to tie this back into the saving of America. Egan brings the preservation of the Forest Service into the story by pointing out that the Big Burn made heroes of the Rangers, thereby increasing public support for funding and defeating the efforts of the industry and its political agents to destroy the Service which stood in the way of unfettered exploitation of the timber lands. The writing is excellent. This narrative moves seamlessly from one story to another. You will always be longing for the next page. Whether you are a devotee of the history of the Idaho-Montana region, Theodore Roosevelt, the Conservation Movement or the Progressive Era, this is a valuable addition to your library. Among my interests are Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era. Although I already knew much about those subjects before I began this book, I learned many new things and deepened my understanding. However familiar you are with these topics, you will learn much from this work.

Timothy Egan, the author of The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and The Fire That Saved America, became one of my "must read" authors after the publication of his excellent book on the Dust Bowl, The Worst Hard Time. In The Big Burn, Egan turns his attention and exceptional research and storytelling skills to an event and individuals unknown to most Americans; a wildfire that, in August 1910, consumed more that 3 million acres, five towns, and about 100 lives. All in the span of two days. To give you an idea the size of 3 millions acres, Egan tells you it would be as if the entire state of Connecticut was burned to the ground over the weekend. Contents: Prologue Part I - In on the Creation Part II - What They Lost Part III - What They Saved Notes on Sources Acknowledgements Index The Prologue sets up what will happen in Part II - What They Lost. It is a section of the book that fills the reader with dread. To reduce your anxiety, Egan inserts "In on the Creation," a slow build to what will come. In this section of the book, he takes his time introducing the individuals; President Teddy Roosevelt, a very progressive President that was instrumental in the creation of National Parks as well as National Forests, Gifford Pinchot, the first head of the newly formed Forest Service and a very strange person, John Muir, the corrupt members of the Senate, at odds with the President and his idea of protecting vast tracts of virgin forest, and the early Forest Service Rangers, charged with protecting the forests and upholding the laws in a very lawless area of the United States. After racing through the Prologue, it will take some time to adapt to the pace of "In on the Creation." However, the payoff is the thrill ride that is "What They Lost," made more tragic by the knowledge that regardless of the heroics, nothing prepared the Forest Service Rangers, the US government, or the remote towns for the fast, intense (temperatures were estimated in some parts to be 2000 degrees) fire sweeping through the states of Idaho, Montana, and Washington. Fire jumping from tree top to tree top. Trees exploding as their sap boiled. Hurricane force winds knocking down giant trees. Heat so intense that it melted glass and metal and fire that moved so fast that neither man nor beast could out run it. Taking the lessons of this wildfire, Egan then investigates the aftermath, some lessons have remained to this day, while others are forgotten, doomed to repeat. Finally, Egan doesn't keep the reader wondering about the major players after the fire, he relates their stories, some heartbreaking, others uplifting. The result is a powerful story of early America and a forest fire that shaped our views of nature. I never thought that Egan could equal The Worst Hard Time, but I was wrong. The Big Burn is every bit as good as that excellent book; made better by the conflict between early conservationists and the people that wanted the land to further improve their bank accounts, the idea

Even though Teddy Roosevelt figures prominently in the title of this book, he has left office by the time of the August 1910 wildfire in the Bitterroot Mountains (along the Idaho-Montana border) at the true center of this story. Roosevelt has left behind Gifford Pinchot to lead the conservation efforts of the nascent US Forest Service. Pinchot's efforts are underfunded and unpopular with influential senators, congressman and powerful industrial figures who want to leverage western timber and mineral reserves to enhance their personal empires. By the time the fire strikes, William Taft is serving ineffectually as president, essentially leaving Pinchot to do the best he can with what he has. Timothy Egan lays out the political and historical scene setting in animated detail, providing well documented insights. He adds life and personality to the central players in the coming conflict between powerful people (with vastly differing agendas) and nature (with just one). He then shifts to the fire itself. In 1910, the towns of the Bitterroots were populated by a diverse group of immigrants with social issues that could have come from today's op-ed pages. Writing about an influx of Italians, Egan says: "The Italian surge, in particular, angered those who felt the country was not recognizable, was overrun by foreigners, had lost its sense of identity. And they hated hearing all these strange languages, spoken in shops, schools and churches." The events of this book take place at the intersection of many disruptive influences in America; railroads, telephone, freed blacks (the Buffalo Soldiers play a prominent role in the firefighting in this book). As we watch western fires threaten lives and property today, challenging even our advantages of aircraft (the US government owned two airplanes in 1910), communications and road transportation, it's hard to imagine the odds faced by those on the front lines in this book. The final third of this book is an emotional look at hard men and women making hard choices in the face of fire fueled by dry timber and spread with hurricane-force Palouser wind. Some were deliberately heroic, others purely self-serving, and some simply met their end as they ran out of options while doing their duty. Egan captures the time and place with honesty and respect, and leaves you in awe of their pioneering spirit and the power of nature over humanity. The next time you see video of a woodland firefighter wielding a "Pulaski Axe", you'll appreciate its history...and know something about the man who gave it its name.

When you think of the extraordinary life and accomplishments of Theodore Roosevelt, all too often the establishment of the National Forest Service is near the bottom of the list but in The Big Burn, Egan brings it to the fore and details its creation and near extermination by both politics and natural disaster. In the first third of the book Egan details how the service was created by Roosevelt as a part of his fight against the Trusts that were dominating politics and the economy, then how under the weak willed Taft these same Trusts were able to all but gut the system by cutting off funding. It is a picture of the corruption and influence of big business in the early 20th century and the efforts made to try and defeat them and their response. Having set the scene the rest of the book details how the Rangers of the Forest Service were suddenly confronted with the biggest forest fire in history. This was not just the sort of burn we see today on the evening news. This was a confluence of conditions that would create what a later generation would call `the perfect storm' but not in rain and wind, but in fire, a firestorm whipped by hurricane force winds. Fire that didn't just burn national forests, but railroads, bridges roads and wiped entire towns off the map. In exploring this oft overlooked element of American History in a fairly small space Egan brilliantly balances rich detail without overloading the reader with needless detail. He has a positive talent for choosing how to give a vivid description of people, their appearance, life and motivations within a few pages. Mostly this is spent on the Rangers who were on the forefront of the fight, against corruption and fire, as well as the politicians who champions and despised them, but also he gives insight into some of the men who took up a shovel for the cause. Naturally the rangers are the heroes. The professionals who, though underpaid, under trained and virtually unsupplied who all the same did not shirk in their duties to face down a particularly horrible death. The book also details enough people, an Irish cook, Italian miners, a former Texas Ranger spring to mind, that you feel you really know the people who risked and in some cases gave, their lives for the conflict. Egan's writing style flows effortlessly and you're scarcely aware of the pages turning in your hands. For anyone with an interest in American History, Conservation or just a love of the wilderness this book is an amazing read, being entertaining and educating at once.

This book reads like a growing, raging wildfire: it starts out slow, then builds up to a spellbounding climax and finishes with a lengthy cleanup of loss and grief and the realization that the Forest Service is needed. Timothy Egan is a gifted writer who knows how to keep readers spellbound. I started reading the book yesterday "just to get a feel for it" and a few hours later couldn't put it down. He does a great job of pulling the reader into this subject, introducing the main characters of TR, Gifford Pinchot (first Chief Forest Servicer who met an early demise when Taft took over) and Bill Greeley (District Ranger), and all the wealthy New Yorkers who resented wild lands being put in reserves for future generations. In the background is John Muir, this country's first passionate nature advocate and preservationist. TR created the Forest Service in 1905 and Congress passed the first laws for its agency. With the buffalo, grizzly bear and wolf practically killed off from most lands, the last great fear was the wildfire. History has proven that even in the young United States, a ravaging fire could wipe out entire families, entire towns. After a brutally cold and wet winter in early 1910, the weather warmed up, drying the forests of the eventual burn area by April. Over 1000 smaller fires were already burning by late July. By then Roosevelt was out of the White House and a new man, William Taft, his successor. This book is divided into three parts: 'In on the Creation," which describes the characters who were for and against the creation of the Forest Service and the western lands; the young underpaid progressives who were picked by Pinchot to be the first forest rangers, and all the wealthy senators and businessmen who were opposed to open lands for the public. The first rangers were more than just office administrators (like they are today), but young men who had to endure a two day grueling exam to prove that they could survive in the wilderness, hunt and cook their own food and build thir own cabin. Part II describes in vivid detail the frantic attempt to recruit forest fire fighters among Westerners who were still more interested in logging, mining, hunting and whoring and opposing anyone and anything that would prevent them from doing so. But then those smaller 1000 forest fires bled into one humungous inferno in late August that ravaged so much of eastern Washington, northern Idaho and western Montana in a matter of two days. The actual fire is described starting in the chapter "Men, Men, Men!" on page 110 out of this 297 page book. Part III winds down with the postfire days and months in "What They Saved" with the realization that the Forest Service is a necessary evil for the landowners and corporations that do business from and in the wilderness. The reader sees how the complete story of all the characters falls into place. Egan knows how to make popular history interesting without dragging down the story with too m