The Big Burn : Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America.
Egan, Timothy,
The Big Burn : Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America. Teddy Roosevelt and the fire that saved America - x, 324 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map ; 24 cm
Includes bibliographical references (pages 287-305) and index.
On the afternoon of August 20, 1910, a battering ram of wind moved through the drought-stricken national forests of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, whipping the hundreds of small blazes burning across the forest floor into a roaring inferno that jumped from treetop to ridge as it raged, destroying towns and timber in the blink of an eye. Forest rangers had assembled nearly ten thousand men -- college boys, day workers, immigrants from mining camps -- to fight the fire. But no living person had seen anything like those flames, and neither the rangers nor anyone else knew how to subdue them. Equally dramatic is the larger story of outsized president Teddy Roosevelt and his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot. Pioneering the notion of conservation, Roosevelt and Pinchot did nothing less than create the idea of public land as our national treasure, owned by and preserved for every citizen. The robber barons fought Roosevelt and Pinchot's rangers, but the Big Burn saved the forests even as it destroyed them: the heroism shown by the rangers turned public opinion permanently in their favor and became the creation myth that drove the Forest Service, with consequences still felt in the way our national lands are protected -- or not -- today.
9780618968411 0618968415 9780547394602 0547394608
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 6227 Sea Harbor Dr 5th Fl, Orlando, FL, USA, 32887
2009021881
GBB012987 bnb
015479946 Uk
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919.
Pinchot, Gifford, 1865-1946.
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919.
United States. National Park Service --History.
Presidents--United States--Biography.
Conservationists--United States--Biography.
Forest conservation--History.--United States
Nature conservation--History.--United States
National parks and reserves--History.--United States
Forest fires--History.--Montana
Forest fires.
Biographies.
History.
Biographies.
E757 / .E325 2009
973.911
E757 / .E325 2009
973.911 E28b
The Big Burn : Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America. Teddy Roosevelt and the fire that saved America - x, 324 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map ; 24 cm
Includes bibliographical references (pages 287-305) and index.
On the afternoon of August 20, 1910, a battering ram of wind moved through the drought-stricken national forests of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, whipping the hundreds of small blazes burning across the forest floor into a roaring inferno that jumped from treetop to ridge as it raged, destroying towns and timber in the blink of an eye. Forest rangers had assembled nearly ten thousand men -- college boys, day workers, immigrants from mining camps -- to fight the fire. But no living person had seen anything like those flames, and neither the rangers nor anyone else knew how to subdue them. Equally dramatic is the larger story of outsized president Teddy Roosevelt and his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot. Pioneering the notion of conservation, Roosevelt and Pinchot did nothing less than create the idea of public land as our national treasure, owned by and preserved for every citizen. The robber barons fought Roosevelt and Pinchot's rangers, but the Big Burn saved the forests even as it destroyed them: the heroism shown by the rangers turned public opinion permanently in their favor and became the creation myth that drove the Forest Service, with consequences still felt in the way our national lands are protected -- or not -- today.
9780618968411 0618968415 9780547394602 0547394608
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 6227 Sea Harbor Dr 5th Fl, Orlando, FL, USA, 32887
2009021881
GBB012987 bnb
015479946 Uk
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919.
Pinchot, Gifford, 1865-1946.
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919.
United States. National Park Service --History.
Presidents--United States--Biography.
Conservationists--United States--Biography.
Forest conservation--History.--United States
Nature conservation--History.--United States
National parks and reserves--History.--United States
Forest fires--History.--Montana
Forest fires.
Biographies.
History.
Biographies.
E757 / .E325 2009
973.911
E757 / .E325 2009
973.911 E28b