Pyne (human dimensions, Arizona State U.), a fire historian who spent 18 seasons with the National Park Service, reviews the historical context of America's fire issues and policies to inform current decision making. He discusses types, occurrences, and uses of fires by humans, from native peoples to colonization to industrialization; early conservation models; firefighting; fire suppression; and new management strategies. The book is a revised and updated edition of America's Fires: Management on Wildlands and Forests (1997). No index is provided. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
America does not have a fire problem. It has many fire problems. The policy of fire exclusion through most of the 20th century seemed successful at first but eventually lead to larger, more intense, and damaging fires. By the mid-1970s federal agencies pulled back from the fire suppression model and embraced a mix of fire practices, including forms of prescribed burning and let-burn policies.
The 1988 fires in Yellowstone National Park carried fire issues to the public, advertising the ecological significance of free-burning fire and the dilemmas of trying to manage it. In Americas Fires, Stephen Pyne, the worlds leading fire historian, reviews the historical context of our fire issues and policies. The resulting analysis shows why it is imperative that the nation review its policies toward wildland fires and find ways to live with them more intelligently.
This revised edition was published with support from David L. Luke III, The National Forest Foundation, the U.S. Forest Service, MeadWestvaco Corporation, and the Lynn W. Day Endowment for Forest History Publications.
