Will I love The Big Burn?

I found this book amazing in how it blends the story of a singular (historic) fire conflagration in 1910 with the formulation of land management practices and wildfire suppression policies that, in many ways, remain at the heart of the US Forest Service mission today.

I enjoyed this historian’s interweaving of those tales, including his take on the personal relationship between Gifford Pinchot, a wealthy conservationist and father of forestry in the United States, and President Teddy Roosevelt. I use the book as an assignment in one of my classes since it has plenty of narrative and action to keep… show more.

Tim Egan is a great storyteller, and this book is a captivating account of the 1910 forest fires in the Pacific Northwest. I know of these places and have seen the burned trees that are still standing. I love how the book keeps returning to Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot. 

I regularly reread this book because, in blazing prose, Egan tells a history of our public lands via President Theodore Roosevelt's historic partnership with Gifford Pinchot.

Pinchot, the peculiar first chief of the U.S. Forest Service, defined conservation as: "the greatest good to the greatest number for the longest time." I learned not only that definition of conservation but also Roosevelt and Pinchot's epic challenge: To save land, wildlife, and democratic opportunity while standing up to the political power of wealthy Robber Barons and the elemental force of fire.