1910 was an incredible year in the Pacific Northwest. In the spring, the Wellington Avalanche (ably described by Gary Krist in The White Cascade) destroyed two trains and killed 96 passengers and crew at the town of Wellington, Washington (now Stevens Pass). The unusually harsh winter was followed by an extremely hot and dry summer. By August, the forests were tinder dry, and 10,000 men were fighting hundreds of small fires across Idaho, Montana, and eastern Washington.

In The Big Burn, Timothy Egan describes the creation of the Forest Service, its development under Gifford Pinchot and President Theodore Roosevelt, and the political and economic conditions that left it with overtaxed resources in August 1910. (It's really quite depressing to note how often J.P. Morgan and James J. Hill appear in these stories of major disasters, and to realize that the "clear cut the forest to save it" mentality has been with us for over 100 years.)

Egan follows Ed Pulaski, Bill Greeley, Elers Koch, William Weigle, Joe Halm, and other "Little G.P.s" (rangers) as they attempt to save frontier towns from the raging flames.

The subtitle is a bit odd. How could the biggest forest fire in U.S. history be called the "fire that saved America"? The valiant efforts of the rangers did turn public opinion in the direction of the Forest Service, but the magnitude of the fires also caused the Forest Service to adopt an aggressive firefighting stance that has led to increased hazard today. ( )

Timothy Egan, who brilliantly brought the Dust Bowl era to life in "The Worst Hard Time," serves up more real-life gloom and doom with "The Big Burn."
This is the story of the worst wildfire in American history, the Great Fire of 1910, which burned 3 million acres, destroyed several towns, left 85 dead and many others disabled for life. It's also the story of the U.S. Forest Service, in its infancy and cruelly underfunded in 1910, and the valiant efforts of its rangers to fight the fire. And it's the story of how the fire shaped the Forest Service for decades to come.
All brought together in a compelling 283 pages.
My guess is that the publisher, not the author, chose the subtitle "Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America." Although Roosevelt is a major character in the first part of this book, he's not the central character. That would be Roosevelt's chief forester, Gifford Pinchot. And what a character for a nonfiction writer -- equal parts brilliant visionary; inspirational leader; incorrigible rebel; and odd duck. Another character who plays a greater role than Roosevelt is a ranger named Ed Pulaski, a heroic but tragic figure in the story.
Moreover, the third part of Egan's book makes one doubt that this fire "saved America." Egan suggests, in fact, that it sent the Forest Service down a wrong path that is only recently being corrected -- a path of excessive logging and overzealous fire management.
Great nonfiction writing starts with great reporting, and it's clear that Egan did his homework in preparing this book. He weaves together dozens of stories in a narrative that never grows dull. Even the first part, in which Egan sets the stage by tracing the development of the Forest Service, is spiced with anecdotes that move the story along.
If there's anything more frightening than being overtaken by a wildfire, I don't want to know what it is. This is a frightening book. Egan makes it vividly real. ( )