I love historical fiction and biographies. The Big Burn: The Fire That Saved America by Timothy Egan didn’t disappoint. Egan’s powerful prose pulled me into learning more about President Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, John Muir, and Edward Pulaski. I usually avoid books with a political flavor. Still, Egan skillfully showed me, through his elegant and insightful prose, the beauty of learning history and political culture through story, much like Norman Maclean’s poetic prose.
The Big Burn introduced me to the details and people associated with this event. Unsung heroes, such as Italian friends Domenico Bruno and Giacomo Viettone, immigrated to the United States and found work fighting fires. Or Ione Adair, who crossed rivers and mountains with singed hair and charred skin to get home.
More Forest Service firefighters than I can count, some nameless and a few remembered, filled the pages of Egan’s collection of stories. I can’t forget the bravery and courage of these heroes in an inferno so fierce and hot that most didn’t escape unscathed, much less alive. Pulaski, who suffered severe burns and blindness in one eye, fought for a proper burial of the deceased firefighters.
If you enjoy Timothy Egan’s The Big Burn: The Fire That Saved America, you might enjoy Norman Maclean’s Young Men of Fire and A River Runs through It and Other Stories.
