Reading (and Listening) About Fire

Another reading (and podcast) list!

There was evidence of fire almost everywhere on the Yosemite trip I took last week making the theme of that section I’m writing (fire) pretty easy to hone in on. Even an hour outside of the park, I saw Smoky the Bear signs and signs alerting residents to keep their summer mowing to the early mornings to prevent fire. And then right outside the park entrance, there was a whole section of forest completely decimated from fire. It was clearly not “good” fire that made the forest healthy and lush, it had killed all the trees that now look like standing driftwood. And then throughout the park, there were charred trees in so many area.

Yosemite sure isn’t alone in that fire is everywhere. But it is hard to look away when your mind is honed in on it.

And I’ve had fire on my mind since I first moved back to the the Pacific Northwest in 2016. At first, the earthquake was all I thought about, but since then, we’ve experienced near-annual wildfires and in 2020 apocalyptic air quality thanks to said fires. So while the earthquake is most definitely on my mind every time I cross a bridge, fire is more or less a constant worry.

And as you’ve probably deduced through this Substack, I seem to deal with disasters by way of a weird journalistic exposure therapy. That is why over the last few years, I’ve jumped on any compelling wildfire-related pieces of content—mostly in the form of books and podcasts.

If you’re inclined to know more about this element that seems to be taking off almost every season these days, here’s a handy list for you all.

The Big Burn by Timothy Egan (book)

The Big Burn by Timothy Egan is one of the most compelling and comprehensive histories of how the current-day Forest Service and the subsequent emergence of fire management policy came about. It takes place in the years leading up to and during 1910 when 3 million acres in Northern Idaho and Western Montana were burned from what was called The Big Blowup—the biggest and most destructive wildfire anyone there had ever seen.

Egan is a master of nonfiction storytelling making every detail enthralling from the internal life of the father of the U.S. Forest System, Gifford Pinchot, to the drama when the fire rolled through the silver town of Wallace, Idaho. It is honestly one of my favorite non-fiction books that even makes national policy interesting.

The Pyrocene by Stephen J. Pyne (book)

I just learned about The Pyrocene while reading Manjula Martin’s The Last Fire Season and I can’t tell you how grateful I am to come across Steve Pyne’s work. An academic who has dedicated his life to fire—beginning with fighting fires and then going on to study fire—Pyne has become an excellent ambassador for solutions to our fire problems today.

The Pyrocene argues that we have entered into a geological age of fire. For two million years, humans have used and manipulated fire and, as many of us are beginning to understand, preindustrial and Indigenous peoples used fire effectively to manage land and agriculture. There was a balance more or less until we learned that we could burn fossil fuels for energy. Pyne argues that the acceleration of fossil fuel use that changed the climate has moved us swiftly from the pleistocene era (the ice age) into the Pyrocene.

Pyne has written a great deal about fire, even specifically about Yosemite National Park in Pyrocene Park which as he told me when we talked last week was compelling because Yosemite represents the Earth’s move from the pleistocene to the pyrocene. It’s also an excellent case study for how fire, public lands policy, and climate change have created the situation we’re in today.

The Last Fire Season by Manjula Martin (book)

I won’t go too deeply into this because I featured The Last Fire Season in my most recent book list. But because of Martin’s personal story, you can gain a sense of what it feels like to be navigating the emotional toll wildfires have on people and how much California has been impacted by fire over the last few years.

Wildfire by REI Co-op (podcast)

I listened to the first season of the Wildfire podcast while we were driving through other burnt-out forests just to the south of the fire the season was centered around, the 2017 Eagle Creek fire. It was a surreal moment where I could feel the imminency of what is to come with fire.

The podcast series (which also includes a more recent season about the fires in the Amazon rainforest), is expertly produced bringing in perspectives from Indigenous peoples, firefighters, fire policy experts, people who were trapped by the fire, and psychologists that dive into the psyche of the teenager who lit the fire. It’s expansive and compelling and perfect for your next road trip.

The Big Disaster: The Big Burn by LAist Studios (podcast)

I got into “The Big Burn Podcast” right after the LA Fires after a friend sent me an episode that journalist, Jason Margolis was on in the recent aftermath of the fires talking about fire-resilient architecture and preparedness. I saw that he had produced an entire season of episodes and dove in immediately.

What is distinct about this series is that it’s not just about forest fires and fire policy (although those are in there) rather it brings in the topic of preparedness and wildfire. Margolis also brings a personal element by channeling his own fears of fire and climate change into learning about fire management in California and preparedness.

ON MY TO-READ-SLASH-LISTEN LIST

There’s only so much I can consume about fire at any given time, so here’s a list of books and content I can’t vouch for, but are on my list. If you have any recommendations, please send them my way!

• Ignition: Lighting Fires in a Burning World by M.R. O’Connor (book)

• The State of Fire by Obi Kaufmann (book)

• Fire Weather by John Vaillant (book)

• World on Fire with Adrienne Lamb, Mike Flannigan (podcast)

• Life With Fire (podcast)