On August 5, 1949, lightning came crashing down in the vast spruce forest above Seeley Lake, Montana, and touched off a roaring blaze.

As every Westerner knows, lightning means fire, but the fire that raged through Mann Gulch that day was huge--the sort that occurs only every few decades.

A battery of paratrooper-firefighters, many of them fresh veterans of World War II, had been anticipating it, and even looking forward to the chance to fight a great fire.

Before the day ended thirteen of those smokejumpers lay dead, their charred remains evidence that something had gone terribly wrong.

Norman Maclean gives a thorough account of the incident in language not meant for the squeamish: "Burning to death on a mountainside is dying at least three times ...

first, considerably ahead of the fire, you reach the verge of death in your boots and your legs; next, as you fail, you sink back in the region of strange gases and red and blue darts where there is no oxygen and here you die in your lungs; then you sink in prayer into the main fire that consumes." After August 1949, he notes, the Forest Service came to recognize that not all fires need to be fought and that fire benefits most forest ecosystems..

For more information about the title Young Men and Fire, read the full description at Amazon.com, or see the following related books:

Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire — Colorado and its neighboring states battle thousands of wildfires every year, scrub and sagebrush blazes often ignited by lightning strikes in the ...  > read more

A Sand County Almanac (Outdoor Essays & Reflections) — Published in 1949, shortly after the author's death, A Sand County Almanac is a classic of nature writing, widely cited as one of the most ...  > read more

Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament — The march of science in explaining human nature continues. In Touched With Fire, Jamison marshals a tremendous amount of evidence for the proposition ...  > read more

A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts — A decade in the making, this book is based on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with each of the twenty-four moon voyagers, as well as those ...  > read more

Author: Norman Maclean

Publisher: University Of Chicago Press

Date: Nov. 15, 1993

List Price:

$14.00

Discount Price:

$5.20

Related Stories

Without Fire, Red Pines Could Disappear, Model Shows (August 5, 2002) — In the northeastern corner of Minnesota stand towering groves of red pine trees stretching some 80 feet into the sky. But these red pine groves could eventually vanish from Minnesota's Boundary ...  > read more

Homeowner Perceptions In Fire-Prone Areas (September 25, 2008) — Most residents in fire-prone communities surrounded by the San Bernardino National Forest have taken steps to protect their homes from wildland fires, according to a US Forest Service study completed ...  > read more

Fuel Removal And Prescribed Burns Reduce Wildfire Severity But May Invite Invasives (March 21, 2009) — Scientists compared the effectiveness of fire fuel reduction methods under the U.S. National Fire and Fire Surrogate Study. Four articles examine the effects of prescribed burns, mechanical treatment ...  > read more

Wildfire Drives Carbon Levels In Northern Forests (November 5, 2007) — Far removed from streams of gas-thirsty cars and pollution-belching factories lies another key player in global climate change. Circling the northern hemisphere, the conifer-dominated boreal forests ...  > read more

Forest Fires A Huge Cost To Health (August 10, 2006) — Forest fires don't just have an impact on the environment, but on human health, according to a new study from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, ...  > read more

Search ScienceDaily

Fire Sensors